TWO major Southampton roads were closed overnight due to flooding.

Millbrook Road West was closed in both directions due to water on the road.

The closure was in place during the early hours of yesterday morning blocked the road from Regents Park Road to Mountbatten Way following heavy rainfall.

Thomas Lewis Way was also closed due to the flooding.

The closure was between Bevois Valley Road and St Denys Road and reopened later yesterday afternoon.

Only six weeks ago, Millbrook Road West was closed due to flood water.

Southampton City Council has since released a statement claiming the situation is "complex" involving infrastructure owned by a number of other stakeholders, including Associated British Ports (ABP) and Southern Water, and not Southampton City Council.

The area in which the flooding occurs is the point at which multiple surface water sewers draining large areas of Freemantle meet and flow into a pipe under the railway line.

There are two surface water sewers flowing into a single access chamber, where flooding first appears.

These merge into another surface water sewer, owned by Southern Water, before connecting into a pipe owned by Associated British Ports (ABP).

This pipe is then drained by a nearby pumping station owned and manually operated by ABP.

The council said that the Southern Water surface water sewer is "deemed to have insufficient capacity".

With the capacity issues in the main sewer leading to the pipe, water will be unable to drain away from gullies and said that in this location water has nowhere else to go and pools at the lowest point.

The council said that the highway gully is not blocked.

A spokesperson for the council said: "We will continue to work with partners to try and find viable solutions to this complex issue that results in highly disruptive flooding at this location.

"In addition, Southampton City Council will be looking into viability for options to manage water elsewhere in the catchment in an attempt to reduce water volumes arriving at this critical location."

Lewis Brown from Southern Water said: "We have previously contacted Southampton City Council’s flood risk management team requesting that we work collaboratively to better understand the root cause of this incident, the level of protection provided by the drainage system and potential mitigation measures which could be implemented to reduce flood risk where required."

However, the council have been met with criticism from local councillors with Millbrook councillor Steven Galton saying that the council needs to "show leadership".

He added: “We are fed up with hearing excuses and that discussions are taking place.

"The various entities responsible for drainage need to get together and work out a solution.

"It is not acceptable that any heavy downpour can potentially lead to the closing of such a major road