Privacy Policy
Last updated: 29 September 2026
This policy explains how Clear Drainage Ltd, trading as Clear Drainage (“we”, “us”, “our”), collects and uses personal information about you when you visit this website, contact us, or use our drain unblocking and drainage services. It also explains your rights and how to exercise them.
We comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR), as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.
1. Who we are
Clear Drainage is a trading name of Clear Drainage Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17027788. Our registered office address is available on the Companies House register.
Clear Drainage Ltd is the controller of your personal information. This means we decide how and why it is used, and we are responsible for looking after it.
2. How to contact us about your data
We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer because we are not required to. For any question, request or complaint about your personal information, please contact us:
- by email: help@clear-drainage.co.uk
- by phone: 023 8112 3123
Please put “Data protection” in the subject line so your message reaches the right person quickly.
3. The information we collect
Depending on how you deal with us, we may collect:
- Identity and contact details: your name, phone number, email address and postal address.
- Property details: the address and postcode where work is needed, how to access the drains, and whether you are the owner, tenant, landlord or agent.
- Details of the problem and the work: what you tell us about the drainage issue, how urgent it is, job notes, quotes, and the outcome of the work.
- Photographs, video and CCTV drain survey footage: images and recordings of drains, chambers and pipework taken to diagnose problems, record the work and produce survey reports. These are of drains rather than people, but they can sometimes show parts of a property.
- Financial details: invoices, payment records and, for business customers, billing contacts. We do not keep full payment card details.
- Communications: emails, messages and notes of phone calls with you.
- Website data: when you visit this website, our hosting provider automatically processes technical information such as your IP address, browser type, the pages requested and the date and time, so that the site can be delivered securely.
- Analytics data: if you accept analytics cookies, Google Analytics collects information about how you use this website, such as the pages you visit, how you arrived, your device and browser type, your approximate location and a unique identifier stored in a cookie. See our cookie policy for details.
Sensitive information. We do not ask for special category information such as health details. If you choose to tell us something like this (for example, that someone in the property is vulnerable or has mobility needs, so that we can prioritise or adapt the work), we will use it only for that purpose, with your explicit consent or where it is needed to protect someone’s vital interests.
4. Where we get your information from
Most of the information we hold comes directly from you. We may also receive information about you from:
- a landlord, letting agent, managing agent, employer or family member who asks us to carry out work at a property you live in or manage;
- an insurer or loss adjuster who has asked us to attend or report on a drainage problem.
If you give us information about someone else, such as a tenant or the occupier of a property, please make sure they know you are sharing it with us and point them to this policy.
5. How we use your information and our lawful basis
UK data protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for each way we use your information. We rely on the following:
| What we use it for | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Responding to your enquiry, assessing the problem and giving you a quote | Taking steps at your request before entering into a contract. Where you contact us on behalf of someone else, our legitimate interest in responding to enquiries. |
| Arranging and carrying out work, keeping you updated and producing reports | Performing our contract with you (or our legitimate interests, where the contract is with a landlord, agent or insurer) |
| Invoicing, taking payment and recovering money owed | Performing our contract with you, and our legitimate interest in being paid |
| Keeping accounting and tax records | Complying with our legal obligations |
| Keeping photographs, footage and job records as evidence of the work carried out | Our legitimate interests in recording our work, dealing with any follow-up visits and defending legal claims |
| Handling complaints, disputes and requests to exercise your rights | Complying with our legal obligations, and our legitimate interests in resolving issues fairly |
| Operating, securing and improving this website, and preventing misuse such as spam through our enquiry form | Our legitimate interests in running a secure, working website |
| Measuring how visitors use this website with Google Analytics, so that we can improve it | Your consent, which you give or refuse through our cookie banner. You can withdraw it at any time using the “Cookie settings” link at the bottom of every page. |
| Disclosing information to the police or other authorities, or in an emergency | Complying with our legal obligations, or recognised legitimate interests such as preventing crime and responding to emergencies |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether those interests are outweighed by your rights and freedoms and concluded that they are not. You can ask us for more information about this balancing, and you have the right to object (see section 10).
If you do not provide the information we need to carry out the work (such as the address of the property), we may not be able to provide our services.
6. Marketing
We do not currently send marketing messages. If we do in future, we will only send them where you have agreed, or where you are an existing customer and have been given a simple way to opt out, as permitted by PECR. You will be able to opt out at any time, free of charge. Service messages about work you have asked us to do are not marketing.
7. Who we share your information with
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only where necessary, with:
- Service providers who act on our instructions, such as our website hosting provider (Cloudflare, Inc.), our website analytics provider (Google, for Google Analytics, only if you accept analytics cookies), the service that delivers messages sent through our enquiry form to us by email (Resend), and our email, IT, cloud storage and accounting software providers. They may only use your information to provide their services to us and must keep it secure.
- Our professional advisers, such as accountants, lawyers and insurers, where needed for them to advise or insure us.
- People involved in the job, with your agreement or at their request, such as a landlord, letting or managing agent, or your insurer, for example to share a quote, invoice or CCTV survey report.
- The water company, where a problem appears to be in a shared drain or public sewer that is its responsibility and you have asked us to report it.
- Authorities and regulators, such as HM Revenue & Customs, the police or the courts, where we are legally required to or where it is necessary to prevent or detect crime or protect someone’s safety.
- A buyer of our business, if all or part of our business is sold or restructured, in which case your information would continue to be protected in line with this policy.
8. International transfers
Some of our service providers, including our website hosting provider, Resend and Google (for Google Analytics), operate globally and may process personal information outside the UK, including in the United States. Where this happens, we make sure your information is protected by one of the safeguards required by UK law, such as:
- UK adequacy regulations (sometimes called “data bridges”) for the country concerned, including the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework for certified US organisations; or
- the ICO’s International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
Contact us if you would like more information about the safeguards that apply.
9. How long we keep your information
We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this policy, including to meet legal, tax and accounting requirements. Our standard retention periods are:
| Type of record | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Enquiries and quotes that do not lead to work | 12 months from our last contact with you |
| Customer and job records, including invoices, payment records, job notes, photographs, CCTV survey footage and reports | 6 years from the end of the financial year in which the work was completed, to meet tax and company law requirements and the time limit for legal claims |
| Complaints, disputes and requests to exercise your data protection rights | 6 years from when the matter is closed |
| Website security and access logs held by our hosting provider | In line with our hosting provider’s standard retention, which is typically a few days to a few weeks |
| Google Analytics data (only if you accept analytics cookies) | Up to 14 months, after which Google deletes data linked to cookies and identifiers. Our reports may keep anonymous, combined figures such as total visits for longer. The cookies themselves last up to 2 years on your device unless you delete them or withdraw consent. |
We may keep information for longer if it is needed for an ongoing complaint, dispute or legal claim. When information is no longer needed, we delete it securely or anonymise it.
10. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- Access: ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you (a “subject access request”).
- Rectification: ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or complete information that is incomplete.
- Erasure: ask us to delete your information in certain circumstances.
- Restriction: ask us to limit how we use your information in certain circumstances.
- Object: object to us using your information where we rely on legitimate interests. You can object to direct marketing at any time, and we will stop.
- Data portability: ask us to provide information you gave us in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, or to transfer it to another organisation, where we rely on your consent or a contract and process it by automated means.
- Withdraw consent: where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. This does not affect anything we did before you withdrew it. For analytics cookies, use the “Cookie settings” link at the bottom of every page.
We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing, including profiling, that have legal or similarly significant effects.
Making a request. Contact us using the details in section 2. Exercising your rights is free, although we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse a request that is manifestly unfounded or excessive. We may need to confirm your identity before we respond, and we may ask you to clarify your request if we hold a large amount of information about you. We will respond within one month. If your request is complex, or you make several requests, we may extend this by up to two further months and will tell you why. The time limit is paused while we wait for proof of identity or clarification we have reasonably asked for. When responding to a subject access request, we will carry out a reasonable and proportionate search for your information.
11. How we protect your information
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against loss, misuse and unauthorised access. These include password-protected accounts, restricting access to those who need it, and using reputable providers. This website is served over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection.
If a personal data breach occurs that is likely to put your rights at risk, we will report it to the ICO within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, and we will tell you without undue delay if it is likely to result in a high risk to you.
12. Cookies
We use strictly necessary cookies and similar technologies to run the site and remember your cookie choice, and our hosting provider may use them to protect the site against malicious traffic. With your consent, we also use Google Analytics cookies to understand how the site is used. We do not use advertising cookies, and we have switched off Google’s advertising features for this site.
You can accept or reject analytics cookies when you first visit, and change your choice at any time using the “Cookie settings” link at the bottom of every page. See our cookie policy for the full list of cookies and how long they last.
13. Links to other websites
This website links to other sites, such as Companies House. We are not responsible for how those sites handle personal information, so please read their privacy policies.
14. Children
Our services are aimed at adults responsible for a property. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children through this website.
15. Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please tell us first so that we can put it right. You can complain by email or by phone using the details in section 2 , or by completing our online enquiry form .
When we receive a data protection complaint, we will:
- acknowledge it within 30 days;
- look into it without undue delay, and keep you updated on our progress; and
- tell you the outcome, and explain what we have done or will do about it.
If you remain unhappy, or you would prefer not to complain to us first, you have the right to complain to the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commission’s Office (ICO):
- website: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
- helpline: 0303 123 1113
- post: Information Commission’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
16. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time, for example if the law changes or we change how we handle personal information. The latest version will always be published on this page, with the date it was last updated. If we make significant changes that affect you, we will tell you directly where appropriate.