Memorandum submitted by Tewkesbury Town
Council (FL 65)
FLOODS OF JULY 2007: TEWKESBURY TOWN COUNCIL
REPORT CONCERNING IMPLICATIONS FOR THE INFRASTRUCTURE,
10 SEPTEMBER 2007
A. PREFACE
a. The Working Group has met upon 4 occasions
between: 14 August and 5 September. This report was unanimously
accepted by the meeting of Tewkesbury Town Council on 10 September
2007.
b. It was chaired by Cllr. Vernon Smith and
comprised 5 Town Councillors (1 of whom is a County Councillor),
assisted with specialist evidence from 1 County Councillor, 1
Borough Councillor and 3 members of the public.
B. COUNCIL EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
For geographical reasons, Tewkesbury has always
been and will always be susceptible to flooding. Since 1990 witnesses
have experienced an increasing frequency and severity of flooding
and the reasons for this must be understood and mitigated. The
people of Tewkesbury are very vulnerable to decisions made elsewhere
with scant regard for the consequences "down stream".
1. Imperative: that one local agency should
have complete control/scrutiny over all agencies be they governmental
(e.g. E.A.) or private (Severn Trent Water):
a. flood prevention measures: to enforce
spending where required.
b. defining the flood plain: it is clear
that the current E.A. definition is too limited.
c. over-ruling plans to build on the defined
flood plain and to ensure that developers provide and maintain
adequate drainage systems from the development to the outfall,
however, distant that may seem.
2. Demand a Local Public Enquiry into the
causes of the 2007 Floods and ascertain why the submission by
Tewkesbury Town Council Tewkesbury, Development within the Flood
Plain, written and research by Georgina Smith in October 2002
was not implemented. Re-visited since July 2007, it is arguable
that had the evidence been heeded then the disaster of July 2007
might have been diminished.
3. Halt all developments and plans which
are currently taking place on or near the flood plain until it
is decided that a flood disaster will not be the consequence.
4. Living with flooding.
It is argued that there are three different
types of flood, which affect Tewkesbury
A. the hard flood—run off
from concrete
B. the soft flood—run off
from agricultural land
However as the hard flood travelled such
distances from the Cotswold scarp villages like the now huge Bishops
Cleeve, the hard and soft floods were coinciding in Tewkesbury.
Flash floods in Tewkesbury then exacerbate the problem.
2. Avon Flood—2-3 days later.
3. Severn Flood—2 to 3 days after the
Avon flood, depending on where in the catchment area the rain
had fallen. This is then exacerbated, especially on 22 July 2007
by a high tide on the Severn.
Once all 3 floods coincide then tributaries
like the Swilgate, Tirle and Carrant Brook back up causing even
more flooding and damage.
The aim of many of our proposals would be
to enhance the passing of the flash floods before the impact of
the River flood.
C. PHASED RECOMMENDATIONS
RE INFRASTRUCTURE:
The Group analysed the problems and recommended
solutions under three perspectives: Short Term (issues of maintenance
which have been neglected), Medium (issues which require extra-ordinary
funding but are urgent) and Long Term (issues which require extra-ordinary
funding but which will be of long term benefit to the Town).
a. Short Term (issues of maintenance which
have been neglected; these need to be completed by the season
of winter floods 2007-8.)
i. Drains—Roads, gullies: clearing
existing systems. Estimated Cost £99,000.
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| Gulley sucker required | 30 days x 10 hours x £80ph
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| Jet Flush | 50 days x 10hrs x £150ph
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b. Knights Way a priority, already in hand: GCC report
now awaited.
c. Ashchurch Road: should 1 ft (0.3m) diameter pipes
be replaced by 1 metre culvert?
e. GCC have conceded that there are no maps of drainage
systems so these must be drawn up by Parishes, with the assistance
of Residents Groups.
f. It is claimed that Morrison's is protected by
2 culverts and a ditch from the Tirle which links up with the
Carrant Brook; however the former Safeway had been built upon
Wash lands called theWater Meadows which always used to flood
without harm.
g. Alleys: where does responsibility lie for poor
quality paving; lack of drainage from newer properties and blocked
drains?
a. systematic plan for clearing debris and banks;
there has been no increase in the capacity of the Tirlebrook or
the Fidd and that the planning led to the joining of large culverts
to smaller ones; the theory being that the flash floods would
pass quickly; photographs provided of the bed of the Swilgate
passing through Rudgeway Farm in 2006 which showed how silted
up is that river in that location.
b. responsibility of residents of Tirlebank to clear
half of Tirlebrook on each property to be clarified and enforced.
c. Balancing ponds—are they adequate? Are they
working? Who owns them? Who maintains them? It was felt that they
were now silted up and, in any case, rendered less valuable because
at level of water table.
a. recommended that Town Council Advice contained
in 2002 Flood Enquiry submissions be implemented.
b. The culvert under the A38 which gives the Swilgate
access to the Lower Avon was—and still is—inadequate
for the amount of water that it must pass in times of flood; since
2002 more houses have been occupied in Wheatpieces along with
400 homes in Bishops Cleeve. It must be stressed that the Swilgate
hosts water from the rivers Tirle and Fidd as well as smaller
brooks and drains the scarp of the Cotswolds from Dixton Hill
to Cleeve Hill.
c. The filling in of the Flood Plains:
1. Severn Trent should re-impose clearance order
concerning materials dumped on the field behind Pike House, so-called
Massey's Field.
2. Chapel Fields in Walton Cardiff had been
in-filled by a local farmer.
d. The possible damming effect of new Roads: are
the culverts sufficiently large and are they cleared?
iv. Cycleway on former railway track which provides a
dry route during floods. Cllr. Dawson (GCC) reported that it is
in the funding priority for 2008-9 but that, because of its importance,
he hopes that its priority will increase.
v. Closing the Cotteswold Road Gap in the Railway embankment
which caused such misery in Station Lane and Cotswold Gardens.
b. Medium Term (issues which require extra-ordinary funding
but are urgent.)
i. Coventry Close, Priors Park needs urgent building of
a defence eg a bund.
a. Abbey Mill pond to be dredged from 3ft to nearer
former 32'.
b. Owners of Abbey Mill be required to clear water
wheel bays to allow passage of water.
c. King John Bridge archways need dredging and keeping
clear of debris.
d. Finger moorings to be replaced by floating mooring
with a winding point being kept clear to encourage tourist narrow
boats to turn right and moor in Tewkesbury.
e. Re-establish LANT control of Town Slipway by restoring
chain on slipway with key issued only to LANT licence holders.
f. Action taken to reduce speed which is wearing
away the banks.
iii. Prior's Park Emergency Dry Route:
a. the area already was a serious shortage of parking
spaces for residents verges where possible to be replaced by grass
creep parking bays which could be cleared in emergency for use
by police etc.
iv. New estate development; planning requirements need
to be amended so that:
a. developers must ensure that they pay for improvements
to existing communal drainage so that new homes can be drained
effectively without overloading the system; perhaps this is the
only moral use for Section 106 payments? Developers should be
required to set up a Trust Fund, the interest from which would
be used for drainage maintenance in the future, whether or not
the developer concerned ceases to trade.
b. all new homes to be built with grey water provision.
v. raised decked causeways with Armco piping to be built
at crucial blockage points
a. Bredon Road between c Handyman centre and corner
of Oldbury Road (Carrant Brook). What about the need to rebuild
the Carrant Brook bridge on Bredon Rd using railings instead of
a solid parapet to prevent damming of flood water which increases
flooding of buildings?
b. Ashchurch Rd: Wilding Close to Oldfield Road (Tirlebrook)
c. Church Street—but problem of Abbey Terrace
might mean only recourse is to widen stream through Gloucester
Road bridge on the Swilgate
vi. link road between Morrison's Ghost Road and Station
Road with bollards to restrict traffic except in emergency as
only dry route into town. (Some councillors would like this ...
road extended along Station Road to give access only to the Town
Centre Car Park in Spring Gardens. Cllr Dawson advised that "it
had already been looked at by GCC and rejected on safety grounds
on at least 2 occasions in the past."
Cllr Pavey provided a rationale for a flood canal to link
the Swilgate just west of its confluence with Deans Brook and
the Coomb Hill Canal. The distance was estimated at 2.5 km and
way leave would be purchased to construct a vallum for flood water
which would be grassed for pastoral use in normal times. This
would necessitate a really appropriately large culvert under the
A38.
The benefit would be that much of the water which funnels
into the Swilgate via Tewkesbury suburbs would enter the Severn
giving some relief to Deerhurst.
The disadvantage would be the threat to the wild life reserve
on the Coomb Hill Canal which suffered to badly in these floods
of 2007.
However, all members of the committee thought the idea merited
earnest consideration.
viii.Dredging/clearing of debris from Rivers Severn and Avon:
in commercial days 12 ft was the depth and in pleasure days 6ft.
Is this maintained?
c. Long Term (issues which require extra-ordinary funding
but which will be of long term benefit to the Town)
i. M5 Junction 10 to be opened up to both carriageways
and directions.
i. The Chair explained from professional and
personal experience that the embankment which carried the former
railway acted as a dam which probably protected a lot of the Northern
Oldbury from being flooded.
ii. the flooding in Station Lane and Cotteswold
Road was probably caused by flood water penetrating the gap which
used to be bridged by the railway: the gap needs flood defences.
iii. therefore, if present ideas were carried
through and the embankment was gradually lowered to meet a roundabout
in the Bredon Road, then even more properties in the Oldbury would
have been flooded.
iv. Conclusion: from a perspective of flood
prevention then the proposed GCC Northern Bypass along with former
railway would exacerbate flooding in the northern Oldbury area.
b. Alternative Bypass Plans submitted by Peter Finnigan
via the Chair
i. Phase 1: This would coincide with raising
the level of the Bredon Roads over Carrant Brook by decking; Bredon
Road would be raised on a solid embankment from the decked section
to the White Bear.
ii. Phase 2: The former railway embankment would
be preserved as a noise and flood barrier (with a bund filling
in the crucial gap at the end of Cotteswold Road. The Relief Road
would then be built on a new embankment to the north of the existing
one in the Carrant Flood Plain which would gradually be lowered
to meet the raised Bredon Road.
iii. Phase 3: would then be the purchase of
land from the Tewkesbury Marina to bridge the Avon and follow
the enlarged railway embankment to a roundabout at the junction
of the A38 and the Ledbury Road.
iv. The committee concluded that this imaginative
plan might be so expensive and exacerbate the flooding y using
the Carrant Brook floodplain.
c. Alternative relief roads for the traffic (which
would also be dry in times of flooding):
i. a road linking Shannon Way and the Bredon
Road, north of the new allotments. This would give an alternative
way of accessing the M5 without travelling through the town centre.
Tewkesbury Town Counci
August 2007
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