Time to act over ‘fast water’ problem

Developers who wish to construct within the confines of this extensive river system are always totally cavalier about the effect of flooding caused by their schemes and blithely brush concerns aside as being of no consequence.

However, although “the wrong sort of rain” is nonsense, “The wrong sort of water” is not. We have fast, slow and static water from rainfall and fast water is the dangerous one.

This is where rain falls onto hard surfaces, typically of tarmac and concrete and runs off into the river system within minutes. Slow and static water is where the rain falls onto “green” areas, with the slow water drip feeding into the river system over weeks & months and the static water sinking into the area where it falls and disappears below ground.

The more green land that is destroyed and covered, the more serious the situation will become, as a greater percentage of the rainfall becomes “fast water”. This may not always produce serious local flooding but further downstream where there is a river confluence, it surely will.

Think Tewkesbury for instance.

With Government sources saying that the developed proportion of land in England needs to increase from the current eight per cent to a projected 12 per cent to house everyone, the purchase of a house in any river valley downstream situation is fraught with risk as the balance of water disposal tilts.

Serious thought and action needs to be applied to this scenario at the highest lever, rather than indulge in hand wringing and blame in the future. - Robert Sherriff, Masters Orchard, Southam.