CHEW VALLEY FLOOD FORUM (CVFF)
Minutes of 4th Steering Committee Meeting Chew Magna 14 October 2013
Present:
Steering Committee - Rachel Wilson and Mike Curtis Co-Chairs, John Wright, John Gall, Iris Gall, Seppie Hope, Scott Parkman, Phillip Hales
The Steering Committee noted the resignations from the Committee of Polly Marsh and Tony Bevir.
John Sewart joined the Committee for the discussion of modelling scenarios.
Minutes of the 3rd CVFF Steering Committee Meeting held 12 September 2013
The minutes were agreed by the Steering Committee.
CVFF Constitution
The Steering Committee members present agreed and signed the Constitution which will be posted onto the website.
Treasurer Update
A CVFF Bank Account with NatWest will be operational shortly. Cheque signatories (2 needed for each cheque) are Iris Gall (Treasurer) Mike Curtis and Rachel Wilson. Richard Westropp has volunteered to audit the CVFF’s accounts.
Action:
1) The Treasurer will investigate the requirements for, and pros/cons of setting up a CVFF Charitable Trust and will also make enquiries as to how Cheddar raised funding.
Review of 1 October and 8 October Meetings
Though the 1 October CVFF meeting was poorly attended, a comprehensive list of questions was submitted to the Environment Agency, B&NES and Bristol Water in preparation for the Public Engagement Event hosted by Chew Magna Parish Council held on 8 October - which was attended by about 80 people. Feedback on the 8 October meeting was mixed ranging from “good” “put the organisations on the spot” “elicited frank responses” to “lack of opportunity to ask questions” “not much concrete emerged” “bureaucratic kicking into the long grass”.
Actions:
2) Rachel Wilson will remind the three organisations to send to the CVFF written answers to all the questions submitted prior to the 8 October meeting.
3) Rachel Wilson will chase Chew Magna Parish Council to provide the record of the meeting.
Next Steps
Post Flooding Support
B&NES (Kelvin Packer) had yet to respond to Rachel Wilson’s request for confirmation of the wording to describe the PPL defect rectification UK Flood Barriers is prepared to undertake free of charge. A B&NES scrutiny panel will meet on 5 November at which the post project review of the project management and contractual aspects of the Chew Magna PPL scheme may be discussed.
Action:
4) B&NES’s wording of the defects UK Flood Barriers will rectify will be broadcast to CVFF members with a request for them to provide feedback via the website on how UK Flood Barriers responds to individual requests for remedial work.
It was agreed that the CVFF needs to engage further with B&NES and Parish Councils to identify the post-event support that will be made available in the event of further flooding.
Action:
5) The Co-Chairs will write to B&NES (Kelvin Packer) and Chew Magna and Chew Stoke Parish Councils. A CVFF Steering Committee member will then take forward this work area.
Insurance
Action:
6) Mike Curtis will summarise for the website the current state of play regarding “Flood Re”. The website article will encourage CVFF members to write to their MP and provide a specimen letter. It will also highlight the “Contact Us” facility by which members can ask questions and CVFF Steering Committee members can share their knowledge and experiences, or help find sources of advice for members’ particular insurance problems and questions.
Resilience Planning
Chew Magna Parish Council aims to complete the parish’s emergencies plan by February next year, and will be consulting John Gall regarding the Flood Warden element. As regards Chew Stoke, The Street and the Primary School are thought to be compiling their own emergency plans.
Actions:
7) John Gall will input to Chew Magna Parish Council his thoughts on how the Flood Wardens scheme should operate and attend the Council’s November meeting. Mike Curtis will attend the December meeting.
8) Scott Parkman will discuss with the Chair of Chew Stoke Parish Council the need to co- ordinate activity on emergency planning and produce a resilience plan.
9) Pending completion of Chew Magna’s plan, John Gall will produce a checklist on flood preparedness. In the event of weather conditions threatening to cause a flooding event, the list will be distributed to properties at risk in Chew Magna and as a Steering Committee member he will also contact Bristol Water, on behalf of the CVFF, to ask it to discharge water from the Chew Magna Reservoir.
10) The Co-Chairs and Secretary will break down the flood risk areas of Chew Magna into smaller “community self-help” zones and then with Steering Committee members encourage groups of householders in each zone to organise themselves to help one another when flooding is expected and after a flood event.
Highways Drainage and Field Run-off
The Steering Committee agreed mitigation of surface water flooding was a priority over the coming months. Work was in hand/already planned for Chew Stoke. The areas worst affected by heavy rain and field run-off in Chew Magna needed to be addressed.
Actions:
11) Mike Curtis will write to B&NES (Jim Collings) regarding the identification of the main problem areas in Chew Magna and pass on John Gall’s name as the CVFF’s point of contact on this aspect of flooding in Chew Magna.
12) Mike Curtis will find out from B&NES and Chew Magna Parish Council which organisation is the responsible authority for field run-off and also the NFU representative that could be contacted.
13) The Secretary will ask CVFF members to identify which houses were flooded by field run off during last year’s floods.
Environment Agency Modelling
Modelling of various scenarios was discussed. The scenarios identified by the Environment Agency are set out in the Appendix at the end of these minutes. The Steering Committee agreed to state the scenarios it would like modelled and tested in high level terms, as follows:
a) Effects of managing the water levels and outflows of Chew Valley Lake and Chew Magna Reservoir, taking into account the forecasting of rainfall, inflows into the reservoirs, and ground saturation. The Committee thought that for the Lake there was no point in modelling the “what ifs” of no reservoir or an empty reservoir, and the modelling should be aimed at solutions to manage the water level in autumn/winter to afford spare capacity to retain water inflows and prevent overflows. For the Chew Magna Reservoir an empty reservoir should be modelled, together with half full and full.
b) Changes to the confluences of the Winford Brook and Chew Stoke Stream with the River Chew to improve flood flows
c) The effects of pinch points caused by the river banks and structures/buildings along the River Chew and Winford Brook within the village (e.g. at Streamleaze and Silver Street) and testing of solutions such as constructing culverts to aid the flow of water e.g. at the side of the Tunbridge and the Norton Lane road bridges, removing bridge parapets etc.
d) The effects of weirs along the main water courses e.g. the weir above Stanton Road by the cricket pitch, and the impact of changing them
e) How water flows out from the village and the effect of the flood plain towards Stanton Drew and Pensford, including the Stanton Drew/Bye Mills weir(s). Changes that could be made downstream to ensure the water escapes from the village rapidly without impediment.
The effects of surface water/run-off on the rivers and regular river maintenance and de-silting also needed to be explored. The Committee could not understand what “the footbridge at the end of Norton Lane” was, that the Environment Agency wanted to examine.
Actions:
14) Rachel Wilson will organise a telephone voice conference between several Steering Committee members, John Sewart and the Environment Agency to gain a better understanding of the scope and capabilities of the planned modelling.
15) Mike Curtis will respond to the Environment Agency’s request for the CVFF’s preferred modelling scenarios.
AOB
Action:
16) Mike Curtis will consult Liz Richardson about involving the Harptrees and Pensford in the Forum’s activities.
Next Meeting
No date was set for the Next Steering Committee meeting.
October 2013 Phillip Hales Secretary CVFF
Appendix
The Environment Agency’s proposed scenarios for modelling and their views on these scenarios:
“ a) Assess the influence of Chew Magna Reservoir and Chew Valley Lake by assuming they are full, half empty, empty and if they did not exist.
b) Assess whether the confluence of the River Chew and the Winford Brook causes a backwater effect up in to the communities upstream, and whether an alternative alignment of the confluence could reduce this effect. From a site meeting it appeared that the current alignment does not seem to cause a restriction. The restriction is the two rivers meeting and the larger river being at capacity causing the smaller watercourse (Winford Brook) to ‘back up’.
c) Assess the impacts of channel maintenance. Our operations teams clear large volumes of silt from a few structures within the River Chew and Winford Brook, what is the impact of silt build up at these structures, could there be a benefit from more regular channel clearance in these locations.
d) Assess whether altering bank heights along a section of the River Chew between Tunbridge and Pensford (raising and or lowering) would reduce flood risk to properties. There are no formal flood banks along this section. Any lowering would require field lowering which is likely to be prohibitory expensive and difficult to achieve.
e) Report on the impact of the footbridge at the end of Norton Lane.
f) Testing effects of including buildings. Modelling would usually strip buildings out but we would like to test where the water goes with buildings in place.
An option that we (The Environment Agency) would like to test is removing the weir above Stanton Roadby the cricket ground.”