Businesses and homeowners say they are fed up of waiting for the council to stop a road from flooding.

Traders along Hermitage Road, in South Tottenham, are being forced to keep their shop doors closed during bad weather thanks to faulty drainage systems.

Huge puddles of murky water gather at the junction with Oakdale Road whenever it rains, leaving the supermarket, takeaway, butchers shop and dry cleaners along the road ankle deep in water.

Staff are also forced to put supermarket delivery crates and shopping trolleys in the road to prevent cars driving through the puddles and flooding the pavements even further.

Jim Cassins, of Oakdale Road, has been complaining to Haringey council since last October and claims the problem has been going for the past two years.

He said: “It is terribly environmentally unhealthy that this filthy water can just keep flooding into these shops “It’s been terrible this week with the torrential rain, the water goes all the way along the whole stretch of those shops.

“The whole area is complaining about it and has been for about two years now, since the contractors resurfaced the road and they never levelled it off so the water can’t run into the gulley.

“There’s a pedestrian crossing there that just can’t be used too. It’s not when it is quite a simple job, or at least not a massive job.”

Ali Yazjan, of Family Dry Cleaners in Hermitage Road, said: “No one wants to walk near our shops and we have to keep the door closed or the water comes flooding insides whenever a car passes.

“Our customers and the clean clothes end up soaking.”

The Haringey Independent reported on the problem in April this year, with the council promising to arrange for an engineer to visit the road.

However traders say that they are still waiting to see any action from the council or a permanent solution to the problem.

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: “Ever since I’ve been living here it has been like this, constantly worrying that we’ll be under water if the rain continues.

“The side of the road that gets it the worse is by all the shops, but it’s just a matter of time “The rain has been so bad this week that I dread to think how it will be this winter if the council continue to refuse to help us.”

Mr Cassins added: “Two people from the council came to take a look in April and they promised that something would be done within two weeks because the flooding was so bad.

“They suggested that they would put a pipe, rather than dig up the whole road, from one gulley to the next so the water would drain into there.

“But this was months ago and nothing has been done since. I’ve rang and rang and they’ve never appeared since.

“The council just don’t seem to care about Seven Sisters.”

A Haringey Council spokesperson said: “We have carried out an inspection at this site and monitored it during heavy rainfall to investigate the problem.

“The complex nature of the work required to fix this issue has caused a slight delay, but we hope to carry out improvements as soon as possible.”