Water Forum meets, Squash in a bra and more

The last couple of weeks have been slowly building up with the meetings...meeting to sort allotment water supply plus working party, a Food Transition meeting to look at a Potato Day and an Edible Open Garden project for next July plus a meeting last night about Feed-In tariffs and tonight a Parish Council meeting. I am going to try and keep it to 3 evenings a week as last year it was usually 4 or 5 weekday evenings....

Photos: first two from walk around garden before the Transition Food group meeting then a couple of pics of Forum

Anyhow the Food group one was lots of fun to start planning the projects for next year and included a walk around one of the members organic garden - a bra that was rejected by a charity shop has a new role supporting a squash (see photo) - we are starting to consider gardens for next year - already have a number but if anyone in Stroud Valleys reads this and is interested please get in touch.....our next meeting is on 13th Oct - also see my previous blog re the film, 'Food Inc', on Sunday night.

More on all those bits soon but a quick mention of the Water Forum......

Last time the Stroud Valleys Water Forum met we were hit by a power cut and the presentation from the County Council was shortened - see comments here. Last week we met again with the County to explore further their flood plans and how we can input into those. Neil Carmichael MP was there for the first 45 minutes but sadly had to leave - we are hoping to get him back to the next meeting to raise some key local issues with him.

The County has done a fair job in this area of planning re floods compared to other Councils - we also have a Green Flag award for it.

Anyhow we discussed the Preliminary Flood Risk Assessments - which are needed to be prepared. The Minister last month chose Gloucestershire to launch the plan - indeed our County website has lots of good info and videos on it - like who does what, what to do in the event of a flood, grease and more - see here - if link doesn't work it is probably due to the redesign of the website that I understand will happen very soon.

I have to say it is disappointing that Pitt's recommendations have not been fully enacted and we are still left with over a dozen bodies responsible for various bits of river and water management - what a nonsense. Who will enforce when there are problems?? Will SUDs be nationally funded?

At the meeting we also had a brief round-up re what the various local flood and water action groups are doing. Here are two of them....

Ruscombe update

I had to report that Severn Trent have not responded yet to two letters regarding the works they have tentatively proposed for sewers locally - see here background. I also mentioned the recent walk with FWAG and their recommendations.

Slad Brook update

Well remember the £500,000 - see here - I've reported there have been hiccups and stops along the way - the new Water Framework Directive is throwing a spanner in the works - if this scheme goes ahead it means water quality could go from moderate to poor - can't do that! It means a possible near doubling of costs? Or is there another way than these two large ponds? Well all along we have suggested 40 small attenuation ponds might be a better way - lower maintenance - less risk - restoring many of the sites previously used for attenuation -