PEOPLE in Aust are hoping government involvement will stop homes from flooding in the village.

Community leaders claim the development of the motorway network has meant Aust is being constantly flooded, with the number of incidents of flooding in the village increasing year on year.

In the last three years properties in the village have flooded no fewer than half a dozen times.

Aust Parish Council is now calling on the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, John Denham MP, to launch an inquiry into the cause.

The council has written to Mr Denham under the Sustainable Communities Act, which provides a channel for local people to ask central government to take action on issues that are affecting the economic, social or environmental well-being of their area.

Mike Hawkins, chairman of Aust Parish Council, said: "In this day and age it is unacceptable that people are having their homes flooded.

"We have had a series of floods in Aust and it is getting worse year on year. The water seems to be coming from the balancing pond in the village, which takes the run-off from the M48."

Mr Hawkins believes the reason for the recent flooding is because of the motorway network surrounding the village.

"Things have certainly deteriorated since they built the new M4, the new Severn Crossing and hardened the A403," he said.

"There are likely to be a lot of contributory factors and we don’t really know which is the real culprit. The balancing pond is where it is coming from but that hasn’t been cleared out for some time."

Mr Hawkins said all the local organisations, including Severn Drainage and South Gloucestershire Council, had been working hard to resolve the problem but a proper inquiry might resolve it once and for all.

South Gloucestershire Council recently spent £30,000 on enlarging the council-managed culvert, named Cake Pill Gout, to help with the flooding problem.

Cllr Matthew Riddle, South Gloucestershire councillor for the Severn, said: "A number of households have had to put up with the absolute misery of their properties flooding during periods of heavy and prolonged rainfall and so I have very much taken up their cases with the relevant authorities."

No one from the Department for Communities and Local Government was available for comment.