Narellan facts for a plumbing job
Camden Council
All of the suburb is in the Camden council area, so Camden Council's tree and flood rules are the ones you deal with.
A busy catchment
Council says the Narellan Creek catchment covers 36 square kilometres and is largely urbanised, taking in parts of Narellan, Narellan Vale, Harrington Park and 4 other suburbs.
Yards and roads
In Council's survey for its new flood study, around 30% of the 45 people who replied had been affected by flooding. The most common impacts were roads cut off and water through front and back yards.
Nine in ten are houses
At the 2021 Census, 90.6% of the suburb's occupied homes were separate houses and 8.6% townhouses or semis. 36.6% were rented and 28.2% owned outright.
Water through the yard
Council describes two kinds of flooding here. Creek banks can be overtopped, or the stormwater system can reach capacity, so water flows along roads and through properties. That second kind is overland flow.
A new Narellan Creek Catchment Flood Study, with detailed overland flow mapping, is underway in 2026. Until it's finished, Council's flood information comes from the Nepean River Flood Risk Management Study and Plan adopted in February 2023.
If water ponds against the house in every storm, have a plumber check for a blocked pit or a collapsed pipe before you spend on regrading or a new stormwater line.
Trees near the drain
Camden needs a written Council permit before you remove or damage a tree that is 3 metres or taller, has a trunk at least 300mm around (100mm across) at 1 metre above the ground, or spreads its branches 3 metres or more.
If roots are breaking a sewer or stormwater pipe, Council's application accepts a plumber report and sewer diagrams alongside an arborist report, and Council says it assesses applications in 28 days. A permit can require up to four replacement trees for each one removed, and Council asks you to think about how close new trees will be to sewer and drainage lines.
Where Sydney Water takes over
Sydney Water owns the junction on its sewer main. The connection to it, and every wastewater pipe on your side, belong to the owner, and so does clearing any roots that grow into that junction. Our Sydney blocked drains page explains how a blockage on Sydney Water's side is handled.
What we would do
If roots are the trouble, ask the plumber to film the line and write a short report naming the tree, the pipe and the damage. One report then does two jobs: it supports a Camden tree permit application, and it shows whether the fault is on your side or at Sydney Water's junction. We'll match you with a drain specialist who works on root-damaged pipes.