Memorandum submitted by Ashchurch Parish
Council (FL 82)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In response to the Committee's invitation for
written memoranda from interested parties on the issues raised
by recent flooding in England and Wales and what steps public
authorities should take to address them Ashchurch Parish Council
would wish to make representation as follows:
1. The Protection of utilities needs to
be investigated:
a. Severn Trent Water Authority need to make
contingency plans to ensure the safeguarding of the water supply
and its distribution.
b. Steps need to be in place to ensure the
protection of Emergency services, hospitals, nursing homes, areas
servicing vulnerable people, hospitals, schools etc.
2. Clear distinction needs to be made between
flash and river flooding:
i. Enhancing the standard for drainage.
ii. Expanding storm drain systems
and alleviating overloaded sewerage systems should be investigated.
iii. Environment Agency Best Practice
on sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) must be enforced
on new developments
iv. Land must be retained for soakaways
to reduce flash flooding (washland)
v. It is essential that methods
are developed to keep sewerage out of homes and businesses.
i. With the speed at which water
is able to disperse being essential in controlling the depth of
flood waters, a contingency measure is needed to improve downstream
flow, perhaps consideration should be given to opening the Sharpness
Canal
ii. Examination of obstructions
placed in the path during recent years ie riverbed silting and
the new Castlemeads Causeway.
iii. To the best of the Parish
Council's knowledge there is no active water flow model in the
South of Avon catchments and the River Severn North of Gloucester.
These could be physical or computer generated.
3. The floods illustrated the weakness in
contingency planning for identifying vulnerable people.
1. INTRODUCTION
AND BACKGROUND
Ashchurch Parish is located to the East of Tewkesbury
in Gloucestershire. The Parish is a mixed community of rural villages
and larger residential and business developments with 6,000 residents
and 2,600 homes. No houses or businesses lie within the areas
defined in the Environment Agency 1947 flood margin although to
the West and North of the Parish farmland does lie within the
flood plain. Two streams run through the Parish—Carrant
Brook and Tirlebrook, these streams flood adjacent farmland after
heavy rainfall or when the Tewkesbury flood plain is full. The
only instance of buildings being flooded in the Parish prior to
2007 was recorded in April 1998 when a small number of houses
adjacent to a culvert were flooded following heavy rainfall. Some
local roads including the A46 and B4079 have flooded briefly due
to flash flooding.
In July 2007 the severity of the rainfall caused
a very significant number of houses to be flooded—around
200 from the latest estimates. All bar 5 or so of these homes
have not been flooded previously or even been considered to be
under threat. To the best of the Parish Council's knowledge no
more than 3 or 4 businesses suffered flood damage. Travel in the
Parish came to a halt with all roads in and out of the area being
impassable, including the M5 motorway which was flooded to a depth
of 1 to 2 feet across all 3 lanes where it passes through the
Parish. Once the flash flooding subsided the Parish was unaffected
by the unprecedented level of flooding in the Severn and Avon
river basins.
Water supplies in the Parish were turned off
on the morning of Monday 27 July and not restored until Tuesday
5 August. Bottled water was not available in the Parish until
late on Tuesday 28 July and bowsers were not delivered until the
afternoon of Thursday 30 July.
2. INFRASTRUCTURE
PROTECTION
As the Committee will be well aware the pumping
station at The Mythe, Tewkesbury was flooded when the Rivers Severn
and Avon rose above 1947 flood levels. Similarly, the power grid
switching station in Gloucester would have been inundated without
the superhuman efforts of the emergency and armed forces.
The fact that 2 critical infrastructure components
serving up to 500,000 people proved to be single points of failure
and that the population of Gloucestershire was just an inch or
so of flood water away from mass evacuation means that:
a. It is both urgent and essential that the
appropriate agencies bring in the necessary protection for these
critical services.
b. Disaster recovery plans are made and implemented.
c. While these are in progress, and it is
recognised that they may take a considerable time to implement,
emergency plans must be made following public consultation and
then publicised so that the local population are informed.
d. As part of the contingency planning process
steps need to be in place to ensure the protection of Emergency
services including hospitals, nursing homes, areas servicing vulnerable
people, hospitals, schools etc.
3. RECOGNITION
OF DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN FLASH
AND RIVER
FLOODING
The flooding resulting from the extreme weather
conditions in July had two components—local flash flooding
and river valley flooding. A clear distinction needs to be made
between these events when planning remedial measures.
a. Flash Flooding—this can only be
alleviated by having sufficient washland and permeable surfaces
for water to drain naturally supplemented by a drainage system
capable of clearing surface water rapidly:
i. Enhancing the standard for drainage
Environment Agency standards must be revised to recognise the
possibility that the volume of water the drainage system must
handle is significantly greater than current best practice recommends.
ii. Expanding storm drain systems
and alleviating overloaded sewerage systems should be investigated
Investment must be made in updating and expanding the storm drain
and sewerage systems including installing storm drains where the
sewerage system currently carries both effluent and drainage water.
iii. Environment Agency Best Practice
on sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) must be enforced
on new developments. The Parish Council has had a policy for at
least five years that all new developments should meet Environment
Agency Best Practice on sustainable urban drainage (SUDS) but
unfortunately the Planning Authority has not had the power to
enforce this on developers and land owners (even the Environment
Agency themselves when they carried out an extension to the office's
car park).
iv. Land must retained for soakaways
to reduce flash flooding (washland). Recognition must be given
in the planning system for the vital role washland plays in drainage
and water management.
v. It is essential that methods
are developed to keep sewerage out of homes and businesses. The
health risks and the level of damage to homes and businesses is
exacerbated by the fact that sewerage escapes into the general
flood waters. This is completely unacceptable in a modern society.
b. River Flooding—while the flooding
in the main Tewkesbury flood plain does not have a direct impact
on our Parish other than causing our waterways backing up we would
still wish to make the following general observations:
i. With the speed at which water
is able to disperse being essential in controlling the depth of
flood waters, a contingency measure is needed to improve downstream
flow, perhaps consideration should be given to opening the Sharpness
Canal.
ii. Examination of obstructions
placed in the path during recent years ie riverbed silting and
the new Castlemeads Causeway.
iii. To the best of the Parish
Council's knowledge there is no active water flow model in the
South of Avon catchments and the River Severn North of Gloucester.
These could be physical or computer generated.
4. IDENTIFYING
THE VULNERABLE
The floods illustrated the weakness in contingency
planning for identifying vulnerable people. In response to the
state of emergency in the Parish, members were happy to form an
informal emergency committee to co-ordinate water distribution,
volunteer activity etc but it became immediately obvious that
we could not prioritise support for local people in relation to
need or to identify the especially vulnerable. This problem must
be fed into the emergency planning system so that the responsible
authorities (e.g. Social Services) can use local volunteers and
community groups to help them reach those who need help most.
Ashchurch Parish Council
September 2007
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