Slad Brook Action Group meeting

An Emergency meeting was called to look at Slad Road and the floods last night. Cllr Sarah Lunnon along with other residents and local businesses have formed an action group to campaign for improvements to prevent a recurrence of the disaster. Some 60 people turned up.

Photo: People arriving at meeting

Some 8 feet of water flowing down the road filled ground-floor rooms and cellars completely - doing hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage to around 20 homes and 15 businesses - many residents were forced into rented accommodation - some are still there.

The evening started with a great introduction to water from Julian Jones, a Director with Water 21 who has been very supportive to the Ruscombe Brook Action Group. He reminded us of the water cycle we learnt at school and described how and why areas flood (and drought) plus solutions, the health risks of sewage and much more.

I then followed with a talk and slide show about our experiences with the Ruscombe Brook Action Group (RBAG) - this was all followed by questions and a discussion about ways forward - the need for urgent action to sort culvert now, then to look at other solutions like creating areas to hold water further upstream and also wider issues like the need to adopt Sustainable Urban Drainage systems in new developments.

There were many people who contributed to the debate including an Environment Agency representative, senior District Council figures, a former Environment Agency Officer, David Drew who had met with British Waterways yesterday, a couple of Town councillors incl Chas Townley who has written an excellent report on the Slad Road floods - plus a look historically at previous floods in the area - there were also some very passionate pleas made by residents - indeed at one point the chair had to call for order - I can totally understand the residents frustration - why can't at the very least the culvert be sorted now?

In RBAG one of the reasons why it has taken us 2 years to draw up plans is that it took so long to get to grips with who is responsible for what - riparian landowners, EA, water companies, District Council - all have different bits - our memo of cooperation is part of trying to find a way forward (see 6th June 2007 blog).

I've been invited to come back to the Slad Brook Action Group to talk more about what we've learnt - but no doubt will also learn more.

In some ways, as flood modeling of the Slad valley has already been done, they are in a good position to move forward - Water 21 have also offered them some money to proceed. To me the answers are pretty straightforward - the challenges are getting everyone to pull in the same direction - it is vital we do if we want to ensure we look after our water supplies and, as Julian pointed out in his talk, that is something we need to do here even in the Cotswolds where it can appear we are alright.

Anyhow apols for haste in this post - do use search facility to seek out previous posts re RBAG or floods.