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flooding in france


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[quote user="woody2122"] theres alot of flooding in england now in the southwest and the midlands and southeast, i think its global warming. whats it like in france[/quote]

Hi woody,I haven't heard of any flooding here in Normandy,  however, the past six weeks have been much cloudier and wetter than expected.

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The rain may be as a result of global warming, but IMHO the flooding is a result of UK building and road maintenance policies.

Here in Brittany, we have had plenty of rain which pours down the streets - then into the storm drains and properly-maintained ditches and disappears.

The problems that UK are suffering (I listen with interest to the news about Evesham, from whence I hail) are due (again IMHO) to the British habit of building on flood plains (definately the case in Evesham & Worcester) without providing proper storm drains and the insistance that road ditches are filled in (or buried with under-sized piping) for safety reasons and field ditches are filled in to allow access to larger machinery in larger fields.

In Malvern, which clings to the side of a hill way above the Servern Valley, the storm drains actually cause flooding (and until you have seen flooding on 10 degree slope, you have not experienced flooding!) on a regular basis because of the run-off from the hills. This has been going on for years.

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Absolutely, Nick.

And since so-called "Privatisation" water companies, who also operate the sewerage process, are less than willing to spend on new storm drains and etc or even to make adequate provision for proper waste water disposal on new estates etc.

According to Thatcher, the whole point of privatisation was to allow new investment! Not the reverse!

And meanwhile the NRA have failed to properly maintain essential rivers and banks, causing higher levels during normal times: in storms they simply cannot cope.

The NRA are great for selling water to farmers and etc, but that's about all.

As Nick states, building on flood plains is sheer insanity. And now, of course, with all the clever planners having not prevented this process, Government and thus us the taxpayer, are about to be asked for zillions.

Thee is an old legal tenet: Volenti non fit injuria; which means (roughly!) only you can be reponsible for damage which is self inflicted!

 

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About 10 years ago, I attended a presentation made by the Environment Agency to a few business people in Cheltenham. The speaker demonstrated quite graphically the effect of replacing soil in areas near to hills and rivers with concrete footings and roads in response to the increasing demand for houses. Extreme flooding.

Good to know that planners and developers take notice of the Environment Agency.

They have even named a new housing estate in Tewkesbury "The Watermeadows" (or something very similar). Now, doesn't that suggest a potential problem....?

 

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[quote user="Alan Zoff"]

About 10 years ago, I attended a presentation made by the Environment Agency to a few business people in Cheltenham. The speaker demonstrated quite graphically the effect of replacing soil in areas near to hills and rivers with concrete footings and roads in response to the increasing demand for houses. Extreme flooding.

Good to know that planners and developers take notice of the Environment Agency.

They have even named a new housing estate in Tewkesbury "The Watermeadows" (or something very similar). Now, doesn't that suggest a potential problem....?

 

[/quote]

You really wouldn't want 'The Watermeadows, Tewkesbury' to be your address when phoning any home insurance company worth its salt would you?  The equivalent of a motor insurance quote for a 17 year old with a Ferrari.

Sad to hear about Evesham, Sedgeberrow et al as we only left the area last year.  Our old village of Woolstone is on a little hill though, thankfully, so should be ok. [:(]  

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When I lived in Kent, in the High Weald, we were pretty much on top of a hill.  A neighbour of mine, just down the road, suffered severe flooding in spite of our location.  When the council guys came out to look at the street drains - whose blockage had caused the problem - one of the chaps who came reminisced about the days when he was employed to check all the street drains in the area on a regular, rotational basis.  This had been stopped when council services were privatised a few years before.  "We only come out when there's a problem, these days," was his comment.
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I agree totally about the folly of building on flood plains ( I can remember this being discussed way back in the 60s/70s when they started doing it in Maidenhead, where I come from) however I think that having 4+ inches of rain in just a few hours is exceptional, although it may not be in future.[:(]

 

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[quote user="woody2122"]  whats it like in france[/quote]

To return to the original question, we were warned about the problem in this area by an estate agent before buying here, but happily (or wisely) bought a property on high ground.  If we ever get flooded out, everybody else will be in serious trouble!

There were serious floods in (I think) 2001 or 2002.  Since then, recriminations locally over "What are the authorities doing, etc, etc".  Answer: the DDE want to domolish a dozen or so 'susceptible' properties in the village, which have been there for years. Uproar + petitions.

The daft thing is that on the other side of the village, 20 or so new builds are in the process of construction on ground which is barely higher than the blighted houses.

Conclusion: river views are lovely, but make sure that you're looking down on them, rather than at them from more or less the same height.   

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South Vendee March ....water was standing in the fields ditches full.....but it drained into the local rivers with little flooding to a few homes ....nothing really serious ...today the sun flower are standing tall in full bloom and the hay is in so it did some a favour ....Nick is right about UK lack of drainage for flood water .....I  know well the area he  mentiones and when you think of the lock on the severn near Upton being about 40 foot deep thats a hell of a lot of water to over top the river there and flood out Upton.......If the UK dredged out rivers to take the run off and dug out ditches and controlled the flows into man made lakes  and tried to manage flood risk  the fishing lobby would scream  "Damaged habitat " along with others who would fight to stop it .....in case a newt died .....nothing will happen ...... insurance companies will just keep refusing to cover risk areas and increasing premiums .... so it will go on ...annual event .. 

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and where were the flood defense gates and timbers when Upton needed them.....on lorries suck in traffic that could not make it through flooded roads ........If you make flood gates it makes sense to me to keep them where they need to be used ...not stacked in a council yard miles away so that when an innondation takes place you cant get to them ..will the  person who made  the decision not to to keep them on site be questioned why they did this ...I should not think so but perhaps in future the good people of Upton might  want the gates  kept in town ?
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For the first time in 18 years our adjoining dairy and our neighbour's main house got flooded yesterday in the torrential storms here in west 29 and we both live at the top of a hill. Trouble is that a new lotissement next to us has caused excess water to pour downthe road, bypass the poxy little drain and flow past us and on down our lane into the field. It was horrendous yesterday, many properties flooded here and the pompiers were at full stretch with their pumps. We have said for years in the UK that building practices would eventually cause flooding and it has - my brother was asked to build a new house where the water table was six inches below the surface, naturally he refused to do so and the owner was left with a white elephant regarding the land unless she got it drained at great expense.
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