Members of the Parish Council met with Borough Councillor Ken Hawkins for an update on the flooding on June 1st 2018
Ken said that he had met with Ed Bradford, SMBC flooding officer, last week to discuss flooding that happened in Blythe at Easter, and that SMBC have been working with the Environment agency regarding where this water had come from.
The same needs to be done regarding the flooding last Sunday – a surge of water affected Nethercote Gardens in Shirley, Dickens Heath and Cheswick Green. SMBC, Severn Trent and the Environment Agency need to get together to find out the exact cause of the flooding and the route that the water travelled. For example – the cause of the flooding at Waterside could be quite separate to the cause of flooding on the Bellway site.
There was some discussion about how this flooding could be addressed through additional developments in the Solihull Local Plan. But it was agreed that it was very important to address the current flood issues now. A proper consultation needs to be done to address flooding across the Borough – it is all inter linked. And in the same way, Bellway and David Wilson have to work together to sort out the flooding issues for both developments – as they too are linked.
Some particular issues were raised:
- the gratings on the culvert were blocked so water couldn’t pass through them and instead went around – the culvert was effectively acting as a dam. Can the grids be removed to allow water to pass through freely? David Wilson and Bellway need to act together on this.
- Bellway are currently digging a trench to clear the water. This will solve their problem but may cause problems elsewhere – should they be doing this without permission? Ken agreed to flag this up with David Whigfield at SMBC, and they will need to take a risk management decision.
- there needs to be fencing and some life saving equipment on the David Wilson site.
- there was a discussion about whether the balancing pond on the Bellway site could be made deeper so that it can hold more water.
- who should we contact in case of an emergency like this?
Ken agreed that he would contact Nick Page at SMBC to ask for a meeting with members of the Parish Council to discuss progressing some potential solutions to future risks of flooding.