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.
Perhaps a fairly comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment needs to be done to assess the sources of the flood waters and to predict the potential increase in flood impacts should any further building developments be proposed for the brook catchment area. Could this then become admissable evidence if a planning objection was lodged against future proposed building developments?
ReplyDeleteHow certain are you that the water on the road is sourced from the brook (overflowing, or backflowing from the culvert), or alternatively simply from surface runoff along that track collecting in a "puddle"?
ReplyDeleteAlso it is unfair to compare reliably the impacts of this flood from previous ones, unless you can say that the amount of river water or catchment rainfall was the same. i.e. could this not have just been a smaller "flood" event?
Also, did anybody note whether the culvert grill was blocked before/during/after the event, and if so, whether it has been cleared?