Following the thaw from the snow over the weekend and the following rain I had a call from a resident in West Felton. The road was flooded outside their house again. The road hadn’t been closed, and passing vehicles’ bow waves were washing the flood water over their sandbag into their property.
This isn’t the first time flooding has impacted The Old Smithy cottage. Alarmingly, this flooding occurred after a relatively minor spell of precipitation.
There has been flooding on the adjacent ‘POS’ and Ralph’s Drive for a while now. I have discussed that before here: Localised Flooding at Ralph’s Drive. Not too long ago, a new ditch was dug on this land to alleviate the problem on Ralph’s Drive. I talked to a resident last Friday, and the ditch had resolved their issue. But I had predicted that it would just move the problem downstream.
Today, I returned to site after the discussion with the resident at The Old Smithy. The new ditch has successfully moved the volume of water away from the hammerhead of Ralph’s Drive, to the adjacent open space. The new ditch was mostly full and not flowing, backing up from the culvert by The Old Smithy to level with 22 Ralph’s Drive.
The lasting solution is to build a proper balancing pond that will act as a hydraulic brake, slowing the flow and holding the run-off on site. This can be a low-maintenance pond or a buried tank which fills in wet weather and slowly discharges over a period of days rather than all at once. Alternatively, the size of the culvert and the main drain needs to be increased, but that is far more expensive and unlikely to happen in the short to medium term.
It is high time that the land owner, developer and Shropshire Council came together to sort a sustainable solution here.
If you have an interest in flooding in the Severn catchment area there is a meeting on the 13th of January at Oswestry Memorial Hall, Smithfield Street, Oswestry, SY11 2EG and speak to them about flooding and hear what they intend to do.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/severn-valley-communities-invited-to-learn-about-plans-for-area
