I have delayed writing about this as I was so disgusted with the outcome.
The 'officials' made a mockery of the purpose of the meeting by hardly offering any new information. Their presence, sitting there to provide explanations and field questions showed severe contempt for the public by avoiding giving any useful answers.
The politicians were for the most part absent.
The Mayor , Phil Lister tried to do a good job of chairing the meeting, ex-mayor Norman Bishop-Rowe helped proceedings by being friendly and carrying the mike to members of the public that wanted to speak. Only one Town Councillor, apart from Lister and Bishop-Rowe, - Jack Rice spoke up in concern for what had happened.
Despite the key SLDC Councillor Mark Wilson being present he offered nothing of note.
John Woodcock MP sent a representative who offered nice words and an offer of involvement- which remains to be seen.
Where were the other SLDC councillors, and why were the County Councillors totally absent?
Heather Shepherd, a representative form a National Flood Forum organisation whom had come to the meeting specially from the Midlands was very helpful giving advice on obtaining insurance.
David Myers a representative for a new South Ulverston Flood Action Group was a welcome breath of fresh air, presenting challenging facts.
In the end , the only way to obtain information as to the precise cause of the flooding in people's houses was for Dr Geoff Dellow to offer explanations and ask Mike Fell of the Environment Agency whether he agreed - he said the explanation that Was offered was quite probable.This was that because of the sandy soil in the area (similar to that to be found on the adjacent allotments)this allowed to water to travel underground through the soil as a result of the pressure from the lake behind the defense and up through cracks in peoples concrete floor.
Similarly Paul Whitby of United Utilities came totally ill equipped not knowing anything about the existence of the drains in the area. He in turn agreed with Dr Dellow that the surface water drain from South Ulverston to the sewage works by the sea was inadequate which was why the extremely high volumes of water coming from the town instead of taking water away from So Ulverston actually acted in reverse resulting in drain water actually coming out of downstairs toilets into people's houses.
Only trivial agreements were given to the public for the future.
SLDC said that the problem was highly complex and offered nothing more - they showed no sign of caring either. No undertaking was given to clear any of the 14 (out of 15) blocked drains in the area.
Looks like we can expect exactly the same if flooding occurs again in the next five years.
The new flood action group have certainly got thier work cut out.
Heather Shepherd of the Flood Forum commented afterwords that it was meetings like this that totally turned people off that democracy made anything better.
Why did the Mail reporter offer such a poor article in the paper?
Again a second flood meeting with what Officials and Councillors do best : respectively - avoid clear answers and taking on any commitment to sorting a problem out.
Why bother going?
6 comments:
I am not a resident of South Ulverston but have family there and I have observed, from the sidelines, the continuing flood story from many years ago to the most recent disastrous floods.
It seems that no one agency is an expert in flooding, nor an expert in drainage, nor an expert in physical geography. The single unifying group are the residents and property owners of South Ulverston.
Naturally they will not be experts in the above but will have a good understanding of the community. It is therefore right that the South Ulverston Flood Action Group lobby for solutions. However I think they are probably the right group to do more; for instance could SUFAG collate all the agency contributions to gain a comprehensive understanding of the facts and gaps in knowledge? Could they then use this knowledge to brief their representatives to pressure for solutions? Could they also communicate their findings to residents?
The cause may be as you describe but could it also be that the land lying on an estuary plain is so close to sea level that drainage is just physically impossible?
No one seems to have satisfactorily defined the problem. While it is easy to complain against councils and agencies it is not easy for any of these to do more than tinker with the issues from within their own limited expertise and resources (however much they may want to help).
My feeling is that SUFAG become the experts and communicate the solutions to the agencies pulling in coordinated responses from each.
If the defined problem has no solution then the residents need to understand that their properties are always going to be liable to flooding and they must adapt their housing to mitigate the next flood.
Sorry if this sounds so gloomy but it is the best I can come up with.
Glaxo used to exract water from the area and process and control discharge this no longer happens.
The old iron works did the same,
the tanyard did the same.
That must contribute to the flooding
JAK
JAK,
Apparently not.
The Glaxo representative present at the 2009 meeting explained that the water was extracted from deep below the floodwater plane ie at a level far down that is unaffected by what is happening on the surface. An explanation , I accept.
What I query about Glaxo's part in the flooding is that when they put down many feet of hardcore as foundation for all their plant and buildings (H block), I suspect they blocked off the natural drainage of land at the end of Kennedy Street to the sea, so that this now has very poor drainage and will not absorb surface water when present. The drainage ditch comes up against a dead end when it reaches the Glaxo fence and about four foot of hard core.
The Glaxo representative made out he couldn't understand what I was talking about as though it was a load of rubbish. He might change is mind if he attended a site visit.
All the work they did on the becks didn't work that well,south ulverston beck burst its banks last night yet again
I'm not sure what annonymous is referring to.
I've just been raising the issues.
I'm very willing to get involved with pressing for a long term solution but at present I haven't been asked by the people of South Ulverston so I'm waiting until they think I can be of assistance.
For my part I would be pressing the Environment Agency and the County Councillor, Peter Hornby to work on a long term solution.
Sadly as I have previously stated , I believe that South Ulverston will again get flooded.
Perhaps then will the people of South Ulverston start demanding action and gaining the serious support of the politicians.
I fear there's a lot of buck passing on some very difficult issues.
We're due for another review of the situation by the UTC. Let's hope some voices are heard that demand solutions.
I realise that I misread your comment.
So tell us more what has been done and what failed.
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