Well here are photos taken by a local resident on 22nd January 2010 at peak flows - about 12.30 or there abouts - at the new Puckshole culvert.The new gully was installed just before Christmas - and as photos show, water was being pushed up through the grating and leading to water covering the road. However it is better than previous floods which have seen knee deep water across the road.
The other photographs show the water gushing adjacent to the cattle drinking point on the farm land. It was certainly very high flows of water - elsewhere in the Five Valleys there was again flooding of homes.So is the culvert inadequate?
The new culvert basically replaced what was there before - although what was there before was partially collapsed and had silt and rocks.....so an improvement with the new grill working well and certainly reduced heavy flows of water that were damaging the road.So are we getting more water? It is possible as weather is more unpredictable and more extreme but it seems a significant factor could be road run-off from the Wheelers Walk estate - before that was built much of that water would have soaked away into the fields but now is piped to the brook and contributes to the larger flows.
A larger culvert would have meant more water rushing down the brook to The Lawns and onto the canal to lead to potentially more flooding risks downstream. For me, as we've argued all along in RBAG, we need more attenuation - already there are two ponds further up the valley but we need an area that can hold water in storm times to slow the flows.
Anyway this will all be discussed at our next meeting on 9th Feb at 7.30 - do contact us if you are interested in joining the meeting or the group.
