THE FOLLOWING LETTER has been sent in by Mr Jim Uney of Brevere Road, Hedon. It is republished here in its entirety for residents’ information. The comments refer to the East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s plans to implement £200,000 flood protection measures on the Inmans Estate in Hedon (see Flood Protection Grant Funding for Hedon):
At long last, after three years of waiting, it appears that The East Riding of Yorkshire Council is about to be seen to be doing something in regard to the flooding risk on the Inmans Estate ,Hedon.
The chosen method is to be a distribution of Air Brick and Door covers along with Sump Pumps to the properties deemed to be most at risk, if your property is not eligible for the installation, the reasons will be clearly given.
The Council’s decision will be final.
Because of limited funding, individual properties will be placed in a flood risk band,(A,B,C, and so on), The banding information will only be used by the Council for flood risk reduction measures and will not be published or distributed in any other way, your neighbours will not be made aware of your banding.
Prospective future buyers will of course be able to find out the flood risk of the property by taking careful note of fitted Air Brick and Door Covers, unless the Covers are to be fitted only at the immediate onset of rain.
A test rig designed to simulate the foundations of a typical house will be built commencing week the 23rd of August on Hedon Town Council land situated at the bottom of Albina Garth, a watertight bund will be built round the rig and filled with water to test the effectiveness of the Air Brick and Door Covers. The test phase will last until the end of September, and residents will have the chance to question Council Engineers on September 27th and September 29th.
The Question arises, has the East Riding of Yorkshire Council opted for an easy option and appearing to be doing something to pacify the residents of Inmans Estate by this proposal? Unless of course it is to run hand in hand with improvements to the over worked sewage system, which may have been done, or be about to be done in the near future.
The prevention of entry of water into private homes will no doubt be welcomed by many people, but the fitting of Covers will not prevent Raw Sewage being present in the flood water when the Sewage system becomes affected, as it has been the last twice we have suffered flooding on Brevere Road, the provision of Air Brick and Door Covers will not stop toilets being unavailable for use, especially for residents of bungalows.
In my opinion it could be described as a merely Cosmetic Exercise just to fit covers to properties when much more could and should have been done for the victims of flooding on Inmans Estate.
Where does one pump excess water to, using the sump pumps provided, when all storm water and sewage manholes are full?
Apart from granting permission to use Town Council land for a test rig to be built, what input, if any has Hedon Town Council had on this proposal?
Of course, other people will say that the fitting of Covers is better than nothing; it will be interesting to learn their views.
Jim Uney, Brevere Road, Hedon.
Have you got views to give on this issue? Leave a comment!
The following is based on notes from meetings and should not be taken as an official record but provided for residents information.
I am aware that Mr Lee was contacted by a member of Hedon Town Council and told what the council have been doing about this issue, so I think it only right to bring the blog up to date. Hedon Town Council commisioned an independant report into “The ditches,dykes and watercourses and the cause of the flooding in June 2007 “. This report was sent to MP’s, the Enviroment Agency, Yorkshire Water and East Riding Council and others.
Ongoing from that has been many meetings, emails, letters and site visits, in the main with Yorkshire Water. The last meeting was in June,we were told there is an ongoing maintenance programme for Inmans Rd lagoon,this will cope with a 1 in 30yr storm.They were asked if the overgrown state of the lagoon could prevent it from working to the best advantage to which they said they would investigate with their technical team.The decision is expected regarding the installation of permanent emergeny pump couplings for Inmans/Greville Rd soon. Discussions continued about Westwick, Holcroft Garth, Clough Garth, Leafsail and the proposed enmainment of Westlands Drain by the Enviroment Agency. Investigations would continue with the East Riding YC about Westlands Lagoon to check ownership and maintenance as Yorkshire Water do not own it. Our next meeting is this month. Our work with Yorkshire Water is ongoing and protracted, but for the benefit of Hedon residents. If you would like any other information please contact the Town Clerk
The real reason that the Inmans Estate was flooded over 2 years ago relates to the amount of rainwater that fell and the lack of maintenenace to the Yorkshire Water lagoon outlet valve system where it discharges into Burstwick Drain. The firemen where pumping from the wrong location until they were informed of the presence of this outflow system. Yorkshire Water gave a committment to Town Council to look at clearing out this valve arrangement and installing an over-pumping system, such that where roads on Inmans Estate became flooded again and surface water sewers were full, the pumps would come on automatically and keep water levels low and under control, so the flood situation would never occur again, regardless of the intensity of rainfall or high water levels in Burstwick Drain. All those promises have been totally forgotten by Yorkshire Water and to my knowledge the Town Council has not pressed the matter further, since Burstwick Drain banks have been increased in height. It looks like the Environment Agency will never install over-pumping equipment behind BP Chemicals as initially promised, as it costs money and would probably be effective!! The Town Council needs to open dialogue with Yorkshire Water again to press the installation of over-pumping equipment in the playing field near to the surfcae water discharge into Burstwick Drain. I am more than happy to assist in achieving this important flood prevention measure, which by installing correctly sized pumps will achieve the end result.