The rainfall in Abingdon between Saturday 23rd November and Sunday 24th November was 48.3 mm, with the heaviest fall of 5.5 mm between 6 pm and 7 pm on Sunday.
The Vale of White Horse, where the River Ock and its tributaries converge, may have had even heavier rainfall. The flooding peaked at 1.48 meters between 3:30 AM and 9:15 AM on Tuesday, November 26th. This is higher than the flood levels of September and January. The unprecedented three floods in a year are due to climate change, where once-in-a-century events are becoming more frequent.
The flooding in Mill Paddock looks more severe than September 2024, but less severe than the January 2024 flood, which was exacerbated by the flooding of the nearby River Thames.
The road flooding in Healey Close is worse then September and January.
The flooding on Chaunterell Way appears to be as severe as it was in September.
This area, including parts of Nash Drive and Orpwood Way, is the most severely affected.
Medlicott Drive has road flooding, and some residents have sandbagged their driveways.
With Chaunterell Way flooded, this road became the only way out of the estate. To prevent water washing towards garages and houses, residents patrolled the road to slow down traffic.
On the other side of Drayton Road, there is road flooding, and possibly property flooding in Tower Close.
The River Ock has also flooded the gardens in Meadowside.
The demolition of the footbridge and construction of a wall near St. Helen’s Mill has so far protected it from flooding. However people upstream are still looking for solutions as their lives are devastated by flooding again.
Lots of sympathy for those affected, it must be horrible especially after what Thames Water have been doing to our rivers. What is the root cause of all this damaging rain? If we knew the answer perhaps we could do something about it.
Unfortunately no one knows Tim.
In the meantime it might be useful if we had someone incharge of the waterways and drainage that invested in it JUST enough so that it was at least adequate. Maybe even invest a bit more so it were able to cope properly. Or even cope “really well”. You know, clearing rivers and streams, gullies and outflows. Well.maintained drains. Water storage. Non development of floodplains etc etc
That way, while we’re waiting to know the cause….we could at least deal with the symptoms.
I suspect that the causes are:
1. Successive governments’ obsession with bringing private sector practices in to the public sector i.e. cut costs to benefit the shareholders at the expense of the many;
2. Deregulation for efficiency and the let’s pay less argument (see above).
3. Right wingers who deny climate change yet want to bring back the coal mines which they so enthusiastically shut in the 1980s. (Against my better judgment btw)
So what to do?
Governments of Tory and Labour persuasion seem unable to grasp the problem. The sour right deny the problems.
Seems to me the much berated but very British middle ground have the high ground in this… look towards the Lib Dem’s or if you want to more radical , the Greens.
I disagree (let’s not forget the LD failings over recent years).
Surely it is time for some of these things (environment, NHS, transport, energy, water) to be as far removed from the ineptitude of the political system as possible. Not one of the political “colours” has the fortitude to deal with these issues – and they are ALL to be dealt with over far longer timescale than the 5yr political cycle.
Would a Citizens Assembly provide some answers? As well as being at arms length from our deeply flawed politics it is a forum for rational, civilised debate and decision making.
Allowing too many homes to be built of floor planes.
At 7.15 on Weds morning the Ock was almost up to the O in Bristol on the iron bridge at which point the sky officially falls down. I have a pic, but don’t know how to get it to you. Much sympathy to those flooded.
We shouldn’t keep blaming it solely on climate change. Firstly I think stop building new houses – concreting over masses of land does have an impact as water cannot be absorbed into the land and instead overflows into our rivers and down onto low lying land. It’s not just new estates in Abingdon, but 1000s of houses have been built in the Wantage, Grove, Stanford in the Vale area, there are loads of streams and water courses in that area that feed into the River Ock, it may be a few miles away, but it’s not difficult to work out why the Ock is flooding in Abingdon! All the flood assessments carried out in the Wantage area were regarding flood risk to those houses, with no regard for further afield! The builders made their profit and have pieces of paper to hide behind, meanwhile, other areas pay the consequences! Also rivers are not maintained, hedgerows and trees dug up all which absorb water …. and instead land is being replace with concrete. The government is getting the balance wrong. We’re drowning our country with concrete.
I agree new builds have to be part of the issue. Never seen a new build estate where the houses come with any kind of rainwater collection system either, when simply putting a cheap water butt in for each house with a garden could at least somewhat reduce run off (and reduce vulnerability to drought) https://www.preventionweb.net/news/if-more-houses-had-water-butts-it-could-help-drought-flooding-and-water-pollution
Maybe we need to publicise the need for such measures in towns upstream, particularly big ones like Wantage?
I’m 100% with Daniel’s comments. Politics is full of talentless chancers who couldn’t make the salary and perks anywhere else that required competence. Where else could they get away with looking so self-important?
Tesco must be suffering a huge loss of turnover/profit at the moment and might welcome aligning themselves with a ‘popular movement’ like a Floods Citizens’ Committee. The residents should get one together and see if Big-Food would welcome an alliance. Of course, the politicians could tell us that they already have something like this ‘in hand’ (nudge, nudge). If the VoWHC get any money out of Tesco they’d probably spend it on something else they thing is more useful (in Didcot).
This article paints a depressingly gloomy picture regarding the chances of new flood defences getting central government funding in the current budget :
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/26/storm-bert-offers-stark-reminder-of-uks-underfunded-flood-defences