Chris and Ron took the opportunity at Full Council tonight to discuss the District Council’s after hours phone service.
As we have previously mentioned, the service is run via Basildon Council, but when there was a flooding problem recently the service couldn’t cope with all the calls. It seems that there were so many calls that the human operators couldn’t take the calls quickly enough and when the answerphone eventually became full up, any new callers simply got a ringing tone – no sign that anyone was there at all.
The response from the officers tonight was that residents are generally responsible for protecting their own properties from flooding. However Ron then explained about one call from a Downhall Park Way resident who was facing flooding from the ditch around the council’s own Sweyne Park! As the resident couldn’t get through to the council, in desperation he phoned Ron, who came round to see him and helped sort things out.
The District Council are also starting to admit that the surface water problems there aren’t caused by run-off from the park, they are caused by run-off from existing housing developments.
Re the last sentence in this report, this is exactly the same situation as exists at the Laburnum Way culvert. Run off from the Coppice Gate development.
The Council shouldn’t dismiss and pass the buck back to residents, what can they possibly do other than sandbank their front doors?!. The whole point is that the council have been advised of a situation that may only get worse and cause THEIR residents (and electorate) serious and costly problems. The least they can do is send the relevant people down to assess and then allocate some of the budget to improve the drainage. In the big scheme of things, I doubt it is that costly or difficult to solve.
With have the same issue with ditch in the Tryndehayes area, as all the water form Laburnum Way and Coppice Gate developments going in to it. And the ditch that runs at the bottom of Chestnut drive (before it goes in to a footpath haft way down) always flood due to the amount of water that enter the ditch here (which is all coming from the Laburnum Way development) and the poor design back when this was all put in. and this has flood house in Rutland Drive and Parkhurst drive.
Yes Graham I agree, before Laburnum the ditch between Parkhurst and Chestnut never flooded, it got worse with the addition of Coppice Gate and now with the Asda car park added its a nightmare every time it rains, the field is a complete bog which it has never been before. This all leads to the extra water in Watery Lane which adds to the problems in Rawreth Lane.
As I recall prior to the constuction of ASDA we had a discussion on here concerning rain water run off, and we all agreed that this would be a problem – as I recall, there used to be, what I can only describe as a pond, where the ASDA car park used to be, where rain water accumulated. We asked then where would that water be displaced too – well I guess now we have our answer.
Will the situation become worse once the parade of shops infront of ASDA are constructed? At the moment a lot of water puddles up on what is currently being used as car parking, once constructed on, there is more water being displaced.
The council have made a point that people need to protect their own properties, and they have a point. BUT the council need to realise that if property is damaged through council negligence (in so much that don’t keep ditches clear of debris (or widen them to deal with increased water levels), they are in essence causing the damage, and liable for adverse action by the homeowner.
Prior to Asda, what is now their car park used to be the old Sports Centre car park. The entrance was from Rawreth Lane and sloped downwards to the playing field, a fall of about 3M over a distance of about 60M. There was never any flooding problems on that car park, or to the run off ditch from the playing field. Over development without proper improvement to drainage has caused these problems.
Rochford District Council have accepted that there are problems and have confirmed this recently by providing sandbags,at short notice,to local householders at risk.
There are other issues regarding the control of run off water from the Coppice Gate development but although Taylor Wimpey agreed to reduce the flow with a smaller output Hydrabrake, they have not yet carried this out.
The problem is:
– a developer applies for planning permission for a big application
– the district coucnil ask the environment agency to assess whether drainage is dealt with adequately
– if the environmental agency say its OK, it’s very hard for the council to refuse it on those grounds
– but if the agency get it wrong and there ARE problems in a few years time, the agency won’t accept any responsibility!
But residents can see waht’s happened…
To add to Greenbelts comments. I attended Park School for five years and do not recall any flooding of the site at that time.
The 1st link show the Park school befor the development.
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?q=ss6+9rg&mkt=en-GB&FORM=BYRE#map=51.60404,0.59815|18|32&bd=useful_information&loc=GB:51.60375:0.59816:19|SS6%209RG|
This 2nd link show this site after the put the 1st main road in (before they had to inprove it as it was to small)
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?q=ss6+9rg&mkt=en-GB&FORM=BYRE#map=51.60404,0.59815|19|256&be=7702727|North&bd=useful_information&loc=GB:51.60375:0.59816:19|SS6%209RG|
Note were the roads are on each map
copy the all of the link for it to work do not click on it