Residents in Abingdon faced repeated flooding, with several roads affected for the second time this year.
Homes in Chaunterell Way, Nash Drive, Orpwood Way, Medlicott Drive, and Francis Little Drive on the Ladygrove Estate have been flooded or come close to flooding, causing damage and disruption.
To mitigate the impact of flooding, local residents implemented makeshift roadblocks to prevent vehicles from splashing water into homes.
Sandbags, while useful in some cases, were insufficient to safeguard many homes as water came up through floors.
The financial burden and devastation on residents is substantial. Not to mention the worry.
Beyond the Ladygrove Estate, flooding also affected a small area of Tower Close, located on the other side of Drayton Road. (A drain expert had been called but could do nothing.)
Drayton Road was not very far from reaching tipping point and flooding properties.
The repeated flooding incidents in Abingdon highlight the need to look again at an effective flood management strategy to protect residents and their properties from the River Ock. A previous flood storage scheme was rejected as not being cost effective.
We are from a charity at style acre our residents from our house we want our cars for going to places Because our time table for the times for our places and our mums and dad our siblings to come tio see us in the week and weekends thanks
I think developers should be held responsible for flooding on any housing they build, or any properties adjacent to those properties if flooding can be shown to be a result of a ‘knock on’ effect. I know that wouldn’t be easy, but something should be done to stop developers building houses wherever they can wangle permission and make a profit.
DItto for the responsibility of any parties involved in properties in greater danger through using poor/inadequate/inflammable materials.
It doesn’t need much thought to understand that a property to live in is the most expensive purchase/outgoing in most peoples’ lives and that property price rises (mainly engineered by those involved for financial gain) are the main engine of inflation … it’s just too insidious to be front mind. Losing your home, or having it badly damaged, is not a minor distraction in Life.
Not an easy problem for a Government to tackle successfully when they could be ‘bagging’ major wins by withdrawing the pensioners’ fuel allowance.
I couldn’t agree more! How they manage to get permission to build on flood plains is beyond me.
However, the fact remains that they continue to do so, to the huge detriment of the town and residents, whose quality of life is perpetually felt to be at risk every time we have some heavy rain.
The developers are literally minting it at our expense. I imagine that those poor souls who experience repeated flooding must find it virtually impossible to get insurance (a legal requirement if you have a mortgage) and the value of their hard bought homes diminished considerably. Even if they eventually decided to sell, they’re legally obliged to declare their house prone to flooding, thereby scuppering any sale except to opportunist low-balling property developers. Flooding used to occur infrequently over the years because we had flood plains. But since the developers began to prey on our town it’s become frequent several times per year.
Newcomer-these houses are from the 50’s so nothing to do with current or recent planning or development
Still built on a flood plain though, and locals at the time knew it.
You’re missing the point, Colin. There’s only so much land for excess water to escape into before it becomes waterlogged. Developers might have got away with building on one flood plain, but to continue to do so compounds the issue to the point that flooding is inevitable.
Sad to see. What was once an unusual event now happening a couple of times a year.
I can imagine that all new houses being built around Abingdon will add to wash-off, as the rainwater falling on the new estates will get channelled more quickly towards the streams and rivers, rather than being allowed to soak into the ground and get taken up by grass, plants and trees. Some measures have been taken to help this on new estates to the North, with those drainage ponds – like the one by Oxford Rd roundabout, but that’s full quite a lot of the time and the houses haven’t been built on that bit of field yet.
Ladygrove shouldn’t have been built, it encroaches too much on the Ock flood plain. Nor should the big Tesco, really. But here we are.
Part of the planning process involves producing a flood management report.
I’m going to make a wild guess but I’ve got a fiver that says the developer commisions this report from a consultant who would obviously be interested in repeat business, which they are only going to get if the report produces the desired answers.
These reports need to be comissioned by the Council who then send the bill sent to the developer.
It would be interesting to dig out the reports from previous developments to see how they stack up.
Really to hold back the water from the Ladygrove houses an L shaped flood defence bank needs to be built starting somewhere north of Mill Road and reaching along to Drayton Road.
As has been seen again in the last few days once the water reaches the street surface water drainage system it quickly propagates and pops up everywhere at that level.
Strikes me that if an enormous reservoir project occupies the ‘sponge’ beyond the A34 rain of this magnitude will be forced to drain and flow off the land more quickly meaning levels will rise faster and more sharply than we see at the moment.
it’s all rather odd. yes there was heavy rain but normally at times like this as i drive down the a34 to work i see the fields full of water, this time nothing. it seems to have uniquely affected the ock while the thames is merely ‘really high’.
wonder if there’s been any changes along the route to explain it? – i know a bridge was removed after 2007 as it was considered a pinch point.
I think the difference is in which catchment the rain entered. Rainfall in the Ock catchment (I was in Wantage all day and it was spectacular) has quickly overwhelmed a small, short river. The fields either side of the A338 are waterlogged. Meanwhile the Thames tributaries are still draining into it and levels rising more slowly as it has so much more capacity.
Isn’ t the problem very simply that the Drayton Road bridge holds back the water – it does not let the water through quickly enough. So it builds up. The proof of this is that the water level downstream is lower than upstream. Today the Thames is well below the level of the Ock – so there is capacity for flood water from the Ock.
So….some simple steps: make sure constricting undergrowth is cleared from the bridge arches; dig out the river bed and those channels which normally do not have water; dredge the downstream river bed to enhance its capacity; convert the St Helens weir into a sluice so that it can be lifted if there is a need to increase the flow.
All simple things which will allow water to flow faster, onwards to the Thames.
Part of the carrot for the reservoir is TW will “sort out” all the local flooding…or so I thought I heard…
One must assume it will reduce the Ock catchment area.
Wouldn’t believe anything TW says, sadly. They’ll probably go bust before Christmas so guess decision will be in government’s hands.
Future weather patterns will probably see cycles of heat and drought, followed by years of excessive rain, storms and downpours – as we are having now.
Having a huge reservoir on our doorstep will be worrisome in the really wet years, and the Ock catchment area will be disrupted, so goodness knows where that water will end up.
The people in the big cities won’t care because they’ll have this huge reservoir built, with so much water TW won’t have to care about all their leaking pipework anymore, that’s the idea.
A few thousand people suffering more flooding in a “small” nearby town won’t matter to them. Nor will the increased noise and waterway pollution over 10+ years as the thing gets built, and finally increased risk to life when its massive embankment walls are completed with as much cost-cutting as is possible.
I wish I wasn’t this cynical, but that’s how the system operates – nothing is over-specced, things are built at the minimum standards allowed, because humans are so very greedy and construction companies always want to make the maximum profits they can.
I guess those construction company profits benefit anyone with a private pension …so 🤷♂️
It’s been great fun laughing at the tree huggers, scientists and the eco zealots.
The jokes over now.
I may have misunderstood, but that seems a conflation of different issues.
I don’t think anyone is saying that “floods never happened” until Greta warned us about it…
The floods always happened. (Thanks for the heads-up Greta); the issue is that por development and poor investment in infrastructure and maintenance means the damage caused by those floods is now an issue.
But, remember…”Don’t complain about development….if you live in a house you ARE the development”…
There have often been floods but they are now happening more regularly and/or with greater intensity.
The condition of the infastructure does not help, but it won’t ever be the solution.
If the bath is overflowing the plug needs to be pulled AND the taps turned off.