Freshwater Watch annual Water Blitz

Freshwater Watch annual Water Blitz

Freshwater Watch are carrying out their annual Water Blitz in the Thames Region which involves volunteers taking samples of their local watercourses.  For those of you that are interested in taking part please see the details below:

A MESSAGE FROM THE SURREY WILDLIFE TRUST:

We would like to invite you and your fellow members of Surrey Wildlife Trust again to join us on the 19th and 20th October for the autumn’s Thames Water Blitz as part of a great number of efforts to understand the water quality in river Thames catchment. This year, we are running a two day Water Blitz which coincides with the start of half-term for the majority of schools. We hope this will be a good opportunity for schools and families to join in with freshwater research.

The Thames Water Blitz is a two-day event held in spring and autumn where volunteers in the Thames Valley collect as many water quality samples as possible. The purpose is to get an overview of the water quality in lakes, ponds and streams throughout the Thames Valley.

This Water Blitz will be the seventh such event and it is timed to coincide with the regular Thames sample run undertaken by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) as part of a long-term monitoring programme of the Thames and its tributaries. Along with data collected by CEH and data held by the Environment Agency continued Thames Water Blitz efforts complement monitoring by providing information from areas and water body types that would otherwise not be monitored. This could be a particularly interesting Water Blitz given the UK heatwave this summer.

Click here to read what Dr Steven Loiselle has to say about the UK water crisis and the importance of water monitoring. Water Blitz is also a fun learning experience for any volunteer that is interested in their local environment, and would like to learn more about water quality.

By following this link:  https://ewgis.org/waterblitz-registration/, you will be able to find further information and results from previous Thames Water Blitz events where we have partnered with Wild Oxfordshire and the Freshwater Habitats trust (amongst others).

Please feel free to email  water@earthwatch.org.uk if you have any further questions.

Thanks

Glen Skelton – Wetland Landscapes Officer

Surrey Wildlife Trust

MP ANNE MILTON – FLOOD FORUM (12/10/18)

MP ANNE MILTON – FLOOD FORUM (12/10/18)

MP Anne Milton will conduct the next Flood Forum meeting on 12th October 2018 10.30 to 11.30 in the Band Room – the public are welcome to come and raise issues.

If you can’t attend please let us know your questions by commenting on this post or alternative email us your questions and we will send them on to Anne in advance.

Who will be there?  Anne invites representatives from many public bodies including Surrey County Council (highways) Waverley Borough Council (Planning) Environment Agency (statutory advisory body) Thames Water (drinking water and sewage disposal).

It may feel strange to consider the problems of flooding after the unprecedented dryness of this year.. However, flash floods caused by heavy downpours are a really possibility. Furthermore if we get a period of sustained heavy rainfall there be flooding as usual.

You are invited to the meeting, and also to arrive early for informal chats and coffee provided by Cranleigh Civic Society.

In addition, if you would like to join us afterwards at the Three Horse Shoes, please do!  We are planning to have a bite to eat and continue with our friendly conversations.  We look forward to seeing many of you.

RSVP or send questions to: membership@cranleighsociety.org

Cranleigh Flood Forum News (29.3.18)

Cranleigh Flood Forum News (29.3.18)

Our last Flood Forum update posted here on 18 March was based on an article The Cranleigh Society were asked to provide by the Surrey Advertiser – but it was not published.

The Society was then asked to expand on other real problems being faced by Cranleigh; we obliged by sending the content for a second article and that, also, was not published.

Both articles were 100% factual, so we can only conclude that the Surrey Advertiser did not wish to be controversial.

Pressure can still be put on Waverley…

As mentioned in the website posting on 18 March, AC drinking water pipes and the Thakeham site were the main concerns expressed at the Flood Forum but the bigger picture also needs to be considered. There is a general concern for the number of sites where there are flood issues and/or an over reliance on Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS).

More and more Cranleigh residents are complaining about the ever increasing numbers of grab trucks and other contractor’s vehicles thundering through the High Street. These are causing havoc in the B-roads and narrow lanes, and it is going to get immeasurably worse as the building work intensifies.

These heavy vehicles are causing new potholes to appear daily in the High Street, and cars are being forced up on to paths to avoid wheel and tyre damage.

But Waverley and Surrey County Council do not care.

There are other major problems as well:
  • Waverley has pushed 48% of all the new housing in the Local Plan on to sites in and around Cranleigh
  • In doing so, they have ignored infrastructure issues.

The Society accepts there is nothing that can be done about the first point.  Those planning applications have all received permission, but pressure can still be put on Waverley as regards the infrastructure issues where Cranleigh Civic Society believe Waverley are vulnerable. These are:

1. Flood risk.
2. Asbestos cement pipes.
3. Cranleigh Waters pollution.

Of course, everyone is concerned about roads and bridges too, but these are the responsibility of Surrey County Council, not Waverley.

Naturally prone to flooding…

There is an interesting story emerging about flood risk to which there appears to be no solution, solely because of the actions of Waverley and the inaction of the Environment Agency.

This whole sorry saga began in November 2015 when the owner of the Knowle Park Initiative site dredged a section of Cranleigh Waters, not realising that they needed a permit to do so from the Environment Agency which, incidentally would have been refused.

On site, their contractor told the Society that this was done to “move the flood risk downstream”. The effect of this dredging was to move the flood risk from the KPI site to the area just before the bridge at Elmbridge Road, which at the time was fine as it was just meadowland. The problem is that Thakeham Homes bought the site and, on 5 October 2017, they were granted permission to build 54 houses on it.

KPI knew what would happen by doing this dredging,  as it is on their website! They knew that the Thakeham site is “part of the functional flood plain of Cranleigh Waters  and is naturally prone to flooding”.

They went on to state; “The main thing is to make sure the drainage and water courses are kept clear (a clear reference here to dredging) to allow these areas (the Thakeham site) to take the water quickly”.

The Thakeham site had serious flooding in December 2013, two years before the dredging – there is now the very real possibility of much higher flood levels, a matter that was totally ignored by Waverley when raised by Cranleigh Civic Society when the application was heard. The Society has a photo of the December 2013 flood level being higher than the site SuDS level, and we know from Met Office Data that they are predicting +30% rainfall during winter months up to 2080.  So that is why the Thakeham site is liable to flood.

Reducing, not removing the flood risk…

On 16 March, the Society heard from Surrey Wildlife Trust that the bulk of the funding announced at Anne Milton’s 9th March village meeting is to be spent putting the KPI stretch of Cranleigh Waters back to a two stage river. People may well ask why KPI themselves are not required to bear the cost of the reinstatement to a two stage river – the answer is that the Environment Agency did not act within the time limit of six months from the date of the illegal act, even though Cranleigh Civic Society advised them in January 2016 and the EA visited the site on 29 March 2016. So it appears that public money is now going to be spent correcting the damage done by the KPI dredging!

Was there pressure being put on the Environment Agency to let the KPI planning application go through to help meet Government housing targets?  It wasn’t until after the six months statute of limitations period that this all came to light, and the Environment Agency admitted their failure to act.

The problem is that if the KPI stretch of Cranleigh Waters is reinstated to two stage, it reduces (not removes) the flood risk at the Thakeham site and puts a flood risk back onto the KPI site.

What an awful mess – a mess that was totally avoidable if planning was considered on all the facts, good and bad, and not on just chasing housing numbers.

The Society envisages decades of flooding incidents, insurance problems and law suits.

Please help raise awareness by sharing our news updates where you can.

As always please email us at info@cranleighsociety.org with any relevant information regarding this article.

Freshwater Watch annual Water Blitz

Cranleigh Flood Forum Update – 18 March 2018

CRANLEIGH FLOOD FORUM NEWS UPDATE, 18 MARCH 2018

Many of you attended the third Cranleigh Flood Forum on 9 March, hosted by Anne Milton MP, when discussions continued on sewer and surface water pipe misconnections, concerns about the sewage treatment works and Cranleigh Waters, questionable planning decisions by the Joint Planning Committee (JPC) of Waverley Borough Council and other matters.

However the asbestos cement (AC) drinking water pipes and the very controversial approval of the Thakeham homes site in Elmbridge Road dominated the meeting.

We, Cranleigh Civic Society, reported that, just the previous day, we had a high level meeting with a leading Insurer to discuss the insurance implications of both these very real concerns.

This Insurer confirmed what we had heard from a leading Insurer of County, Borough and Town/Parish Councils – this is that, except for a few specialist schemes, all UK Public and Products Liability policies have a total asbestos exclusion. This follows the inhaled asbestos disaster, where claims are still being made, and which is reported to have cost Insurers worldwide $100 billion – and which nearly brought Lloyd’s of London to it’s knees in the 1990s.

So, at the meeting, the we urged Waverley and Thames Water to check their own policies as, if they have no asbestos cover, and asbestos fibres in eroding and bursting drinking water pipes (which make up 29.6% of Cranleigh’s pipes) do lead to ingested asbestos fibre health problems, they could well have to finance both the claims and legal costs out of their own fund – for decades.

Of course, Cranleigh is not alone – this is a matter of concern and receiving attention throughout the World including Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Europe so we continue to monitor activity worldwide.

Whilst we are pleased Thames Water are starting to replace Cranleigh’s AC pipes, our aim is to seek a cessation of all connections of new housing to the drinking water system until all the AC pipes have been replaced with new, safe plastic pipes. Failure to do so would mean that, as new homes are connected to the existing system, it would result in the flow having to be increased which would lead to faster erosion and more frequent bursts.

We also discussed with the Insurer the decision by Waverley to grant permission for the building of 54 houses on a flood plain – an area which regularly floods seriously with the last occasion being as recently as December 2013.

The JPC ignored the detailed evidence submitted by us and, instead, relied on the report provided by consultants engaged and paid by the applicant, Thakeham Homes. Their representative was even allowed to sit at the planners table – very unorthodox.

Prior to the meeting on 5 October 2017, a member of the JPC submitted his flood risk evidence to the Chair of the JPC but it was ignored. That same member tried to have his evidence considered at the meeting but he was shouted down by the Chair and told to shut up.

The Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) is Surrey County Council and the Flood Risk Management Strategy and Partnerships Team Leader (who attended the Flood Forum) confirmed to a Councillor, in an email dated 21 February 2018, that when considering building on this type of site, the planning “process is in part reliant on robust and accurate feedback from the community” but the JPC chose to ignore this guidance and the detailed evidence, including photos, submitted by Cranleigh Civic Society.

So there is the terrible prospect of families buying new homes built on a flood plain and which are highly likely to flood, with all the dire consequences, because of a seriously flawed planning decision.

When, at the meeting last week, we explained this situation to the Insurance Company it was made very clear that obtaining flood insurance on this site would be very difficult if the Insurer agrees that the evidence presented to them is sound. Top UK Insurers do not rely on the flood maps available to all on websites – they have invested in their own exceptionally detailed flood mapping, so detailed that they can have separate risk classifications for individual houses. They pay particular attention to new housing developments including local knowledge, nearby postcodes, topography and using the very latest technology.

Perhaps the unavailability of flood insurance from reputable Insurers may stop innocent families making the worst financial decision of their lives?

Anne Milton was of the view that a meeting should be arranged with Thakeham Homes, attended by all the relevant organisations, to explain the very real issues with developing this site, and undertook to put this in motion.

Needless to say we welcome this initiative by our MP but will Cranleigh Civic Society be invited? We sincerely hope so!

 

Love Your River! Village Hall meeting 26 March 7pm

Love Your River! Village Hall meeting 26 March 7pm

Love Your River!

Cranleigh Village Hall Meeting

Monday 26th March 7 till 9 pm

Following on from the recent informative Flood Forum meeting held earlier this month, we can now announce a date for Cranleigh Water’s Love Your River Meeting, which will be held on Monday 26th March at 7pm in Cranleigh Village Hall.

We highly encourage as many of our members and Cranleigh residents to attend if they are able.

Cranleigh Waters has experienced serious flow problems, particularly in the summer months and has also unfortunately become quite polluted with most of the flow downstream emanating from the Cranleigh Sewage Works.

According to Shamley Green Angling Society, the environmental effect of this can already be seen with fish dying out downstream.

Why should you attend?

This has been an ongoing problem for some time, with many issues raised.

JOIN US TO CELEBRATE THE PARTNERSHIP WORK TO IMPROVE CRANLEIGH WATERS.

We urge Cranleigh residents to attend this event to put further pressure on Waverley to make this issue a priority. Discover how you could help improve habitat and water quality. Bring your ideas and stories and get involved!

Help us ensure that Waverley takes action on:

•   Reconfiguring the river bed

•   Providing a wetland area upstream to release water over the summer months

•   Addressing the pollution problems

Help us make improvements to our village and join us on Monday 26 March.

Please RSVP emma.berry@surreywt.org.uk Assistant Conservation Officer at Surrey Wildlife Trust .

If you have further information about Cranleigh Waters that you feel should be raised at this meeting please email us at info@cranleighsociety.org

You can also read more about sewage pollution in the Cranleigh Waters in our articles:

•   Shamley Green, Wonersh and Bramley Angling Society

•   No more sewage in Cranleigh Waters