I
Ian Cloke
Guest
TRENT VILLAGES TO GET BETTER DEFENCES
SEAN KIRBY ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT
16:00 - 20 September 2006
??m bid to curb floods
Villages under threat of flooding are to get ?500,000 of measures to keep rising water at bay.
The Environment Agency was accused of increasing the flood risk in one area to help another when it announced a ?70m flood barrier scheme last year.
The work, due to start next year, will see flood barriers built over 27km (17 miles) on the River Trent between Sawley and Colwick. It will be completed by 2012.
The agency admitted the plans could increase the risk of flooding for villages between Barton-in-Fabis and Hoveringham and allocated ?500,000 to build defences around those villages.
Initially, it plans to raise an existing two-mile flood bank around Barton-in-Fabis to two metres.
Surveys are being carried out to establish whether individual homes or streets might need extra defences.
Up to 1,000 homes are being assessed by the agency. It is not yet known which areas will be most affected by the ?70m scheme.
Morgan Wray, Environment Agency team leader, estimated the increase in flood levels in the worst spot - probably around Burton Joyce - would be a rise of around two inches in a severe one-in-100-year flood.
He said: "For example, in November 2000 we had a one-in-33-year flood. If that happened again (after the ?70m scheme was completed), the Trent villages should be no worse affected."
"That doesn't mean we aren't taking this seriously. We're putting in the work to deal with this."
Cash is to be levied through local authorities. A regional flood defence committee will meet on October 6 to decide if the projects planned for 'downstream' villages get funding. A sub-group of the main committee has already approved the projects.
Mr Wray said most of the money set aside for flood defences in the Lower Trent area - which includes Leicestershire and Derbyshire - was likely to be spent in Notts.
Simon Plowright, 42, from Top Farm in Barton- in-Fabis, said: "If the water ever did breach the flood defences it would be devastating to our livestock. It's a good thing they've put this money up for building up the flood defences here."
But Stefan Barcikowski, 51, who lost his mobile home to floods in 2000, said it did not bother him.
Mr Barcikowski, who now lives in a shack on the edge of the river at Barton-in-Fabis,
said: "The last flood didn't bother me. I had a dinghy to get around and stayed at my home until the water started coming in. When I built the shack after the flood I raised it to the same height as the flood defences. I'm indifferent as to whether they improve the flood barriers."
HOW THE RISK IS MEASURED
THE Environment Agency combines hi-tech and old fashioned methods to estimate the flood levels a village might expect.
It has no records of a one-in-100-year flood on the River Trent - an event so severe it only has a one per cent chance of happening in any year.
But the agency can draw on other historical records of lesser Trent floods and its maps and geological knowledge of the river.
This information is fed into a computer model which simulates the effects on the river of a one-in-100-year flood, based on known information about weather conditions and the volume of water needed.
Detailed information also comes from physical surveys of areas or individual homes.
The computer model then gives a rough estimate of how high a flood level could be in a certain place.
That estimate might say the water level could rise somewhere between one and three inches.
The Environment Agency would take the mid-level of that as its estimate.
SEAN KIRBY ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT
16:00 - 20 September 2006
??m bid to curb floods
Villages under threat of flooding are to get ?500,000 of measures to keep rising water at bay.
The Environment Agency was accused of increasing the flood risk in one area to help another when it announced a ?70m flood barrier scheme last year.
The work, due to start next year, will see flood barriers built over 27km (17 miles) on the River Trent between Sawley and Colwick. It will be completed by 2012.
The agency admitted the plans could increase the risk of flooding for villages between Barton-in-Fabis and Hoveringham and allocated ?500,000 to build defences around those villages.
Initially, it plans to raise an existing two-mile flood bank around Barton-in-Fabis to two metres.
Surveys are being carried out to establish whether individual homes or streets might need extra defences.
Up to 1,000 homes are being assessed by the agency. It is not yet known which areas will be most affected by the ?70m scheme.
Morgan Wray, Environment Agency team leader, estimated the increase in flood levels in the worst spot - probably around Burton Joyce - would be a rise of around two inches in a severe one-in-100-year flood.
He said: "For example, in November 2000 we had a one-in-33-year flood. If that happened again (after the ?70m scheme was completed), the Trent villages should be no worse affected."
"That doesn't mean we aren't taking this seriously. We're putting in the work to deal with this."
Cash is to be levied through local authorities. A regional flood defence committee will meet on October 6 to decide if the projects planned for 'downstream' villages get funding. A sub-group of the main committee has already approved the projects.
Mr Wray said most of the money set aside for flood defences in the Lower Trent area - which includes Leicestershire and Derbyshire - was likely to be spent in Notts.
Simon Plowright, 42, from Top Farm in Barton- in-Fabis, said: "If the water ever did breach the flood defences it would be devastating to our livestock. It's a good thing they've put this money up for building up the flood defences here."
But Stefan Barcikowski, 51, who lost his mobile home to floods in 2000, said it did not bother him.
Mr Barcikowski, who now lives in a shack on the edge of the river at Barton-in-Fabis,
said: "The last flood didn't bother me. I had a dinghy to get around and stayed at my home until the water started coming in. When I built the shack after the flood I raised it to the same height as the flood defences. I'm indifferent as to whether they improve the flood barriers."
HOW THE RISK IS MEASURED
THE Environment Agency combines hi-tech and old fashioned methods to estimate the flood levels a village might expect.
It has no records of a one-in-100-year flood on the River Trent - an event so severe it only has a one per cent chance of happening in any year.
But the agency can draw on other historical records of lesser Trent floods and its maps and geological knowledge of the river.
This information is fed into a computer model which simulates the effects on the river of a one-in-100-year flood, based on known information about weather conditions and the volume of water needed.
Detailed information also comes from physical surveys of areas or individual homes.
The computer model then gives a rough estimate of how high a flood level could be in a certain place.
That estimate might say the water level could rise somewhere between one and three inches.
The Environment Agency would take the mid-level of that as its estimate.