OT Building on flood plains

[Dave Fawthrop]

|gort wrote: |> Now that a stink appears to be gathering over houses built on flood |> plains, if I remember correctly did'nt Pratscott have alot to do with |> overturning many of the objections to allow the building to take place. |> This must be all the valuable work he will still be able to do by staying |> in office. |> |> Dave | |The answer to building on flood plains is trivially easy. Each house,or |housing estate should be surrounded by a levee over which the access |road runs, sufficiently high to prevent flooding.

Remember Katrina, or ?1956? in fenland

[Guy King]

The message from Ian Stirling contains these words:

And an absence of icebergs.

[Guy King]

The message from Dave Fawthrop contains these words:

Which many people turn into another living room and then park on the road.

[John Cartmell]

Very true. The best answer is to produce numerous, small water-slowing areas close to water collection areas. It would be incredibly expensive to produce them manually but there is an alternative and that is to do it not 'man'ually but 'castor'ally, ie not by man but but Castor fiber (beaver) which is how it was done in this country before we wiped out the animal.

[gort]

Err, like I seem to rememeber it being widely reported in the newspapers.

Dave

[Stuart]

Whats lettuces got to do with it .??

[The Natural Philosopher]

Of course. Levees simply not adequate.

I lived ON the fens for many years protected by levees from a river that ran 8 ft above the ground floor level of the house.

The beauty of small scale levees is that if one goes, it doesn't take out the houses down the streets.

Parts of the fen exist as flood areas, which take surplus water in order to protect against generalised flooding.

The biggest danger is sewage backing up if you find the loos temporarily below flood level, but thats taken care of by sealed sewers and shit pumps at the station.

Its all well known stuff..the troubles is developeres won;t do what the regulatins don't force them too.

I'd be totally happy to build a house on a place that got 4 ft of water every 5 years or so for a week or so.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Exactly. This is why you need to have areas to allow flooding onto,. without compromising the housing.

You could, for example, build a small town entirely on a concrete raft on piles.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|Dave Fawthrop wrote: | |> |The answer to building on flood plains is trivially easy. Each house,or |> |housing estate should be surrounded by a levee over which the access |> |road runs, sufficiently high to prevent flooding. |> |> Remember Katrina, or ?1956? in fenland | |Of course. Levees simply not adequate. | |I lived ON the fens for many years protected by levees from a river that |ran 8 ft above the ground floor level of the house.

I've *seen* that sort of house and shuddered. I live 750ft above sea level and regularly think how sensible I was to buy this house.

[Roger]

The message from Dave Fawthrop contains these words:

I thought the night of the great flood was 31st January 1953. Not just the fens but most of the East Coast from Yorkshire down to the Thames. IIRC 300 UK deaths and some 2000 in Holland. We went to gawp the next day but the police had all of Harwich and some of Dovercourt cordoned off. Eight died in Harwich that night.

[Peter Lynch]

It's been going on a lot longer than Prescott could claim credit for. During the 80's some bright spark got P/P and built a bunch of houses on a flood plain near Maidenhead (v. desirable, what with the river). A few years later when it flooded (as flood plains do ...) the regional TV sent a reporter around to gloat^H^H^H^H^Hinvestigate. I remember watching one occupant they interviewed wailing "They never told us it would flood."

Pete

[meow2222]

Not necessarily though. Houses themselves only occupy a minority percentage of the land, and if theyre flood-safe the area can flood, giving almost the same protection as before.

Alternatively, corrugating the land, with the houses running along the corrugation peaks, would yield even more flood protection, since at any given water height below the peak of the corrugations the plain actually has more water capacity than flat land. It is entirely practical for developers to do this. In times of flood, people would be stuck with using boats to get around, but houses shops and factories would remain dry, and since all loos would be above flood level, there would be no sewage flooding houses..

NT

[Guy King]

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

Probably best to avoid the whole issue by not building there in the first place. Then the river can do what they like without bothering more than a few sheep and cows.

[Guy King]

The message from Dave Fawthrop contains these words:

We're at about 145m here, the Severn is about 65 meters below us in the gorge. Something we considered when buying the place.

[dennis]

The best answer is to pull the houses down that are on the flood plain and stop people getting flooded. Its probably cheaper than the flood defences and it would stop them demanding even more of my tax money to waste.

[John Cartmell]

Flood plains are, by definition, too far down the rivers to be anything but a long stop. The very best answer is to have short-stops to stop the need to rely more than once a century on long-stops.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I had many very good times there.

It used to be fun to wander the fens and see which fields they had flooded this time..

WE never got flooded.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, you simply drive along the corrugation peaks.

This is how the Fens are done..a bit like a waffle..you drive along the ridges, and the levees are both roadways, and also contain bridges over sluices and the drains run alongside the levees.

Flooding is controlled by selective flooding of the polders, and then when the flow comes down, the pumps simply pump it all back up into the rivers.

Some polders are never flooded, and contain houses...

[The Natural Philosopher]

well I moved to the highest point available in the area..now a staggering 300ft ASL on the watershed between the Ouse and Orwell river systems.

[Chris Bacon]

Old Fawth is more likely to get struck by lightning.