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Discharge pipe is flood cause - Mayor
6:47pm Tuesday 18th September 2007
Comments (1)THE Mayor of a Gwent town blighted by persistent flooding has pinpointed a discharge pipe which could be the cause of drainage problems.
Dozens of residents in Caldicot have seen their roads and in some cases houses flooded during heavy rainfall over the last five years.
The town's mayor, David Ashwin, who also chairs Caldicot Flooding Forum, believes the problems have worsened since a new housing estate was built at Church Farm two years ago.
He says a discharge pipe serving houses in the Severnside ward which leads into the River Neddern, is too small to cope with the excess demand created by the additional properties.
Councillor Ashwin identified the problem after carefully studying maps of the residential areas.
He said: "We would like Welsh Water to resolve the problem. Residents are also concerned that more houses are planned near the Church Farm site - we would like assurances that a new drainage system will be built."
A spokeswoman for Welsh Water said officials would be visiting the site to investigate Councillor Ashwin's claim.
In a separate development, drainage officers have identified a culvert beneath the railway line close to the town's station that may be putting houses in the West End area at risk of flooding.
The Caldicot and Wentlooge Drainage Board have cleaned and maintained the reen in the field behind the station on a regular basis.
However, a spokeswoman for Monmouthshire council said officers had contacted Network Rail to request that they clear the watercourse on railway land.
"This should also quicken the flow of water in conditions of heavy rainfall," she said.
No one at Network Rail was available for comment.
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Simon, Newport says...
9:34pm Tue 18 Sep 07
Ownership of the problem is interesting. If its highway drainage at fault, the owner is either Monmouthshire County council, or whoever has adopted the roads, which in some cases is the residents. If this is a new development, then the highway drain and sewer network should be seperate, as is currently acknowledged to be best practice. Secondly, the problems of flooding are going to be exasserbated by any increase in the impermeable area, and unfortunately for these people, no amount of bigger pipes will ever be sufficient to cope with the flows that can be generated during particular storms. Once the pipe is big enough, often it becomes a problem of insufficient inlets, and unless we move to roads that are covered with gulley gratings (which are a wheelchair hazard) then it is unlikely that the residents will ever be flood free.
People seem to think that tarmac and grass+soil behave in the same manner in rainfall, and they don't! Its well known that urbanisation worsens flooding, and there is little that can be done to stop flooding in urban areas, short of extensive demolition and returning of land to nature!