Newtown Area Community and Residents Association

Committee: Janet Farrow (Chairman) PRESENT

Julie Greening (Sec) PRESENT

Jane Lucking (Treasurer) PRESENT

Steve Tandy (Minutes Sec) PRESENT

Bill Ritter PRESENT

Dave Witts PRESENT

Angie Thompson PRESENT

John Lucking PRESENT

Peter Aldridge PRESENT

Graham Dawson APPOLIGIES

Councillors: CCllr Vernon Smith PRESENT

CCllr Mike Sztymiak PRESENT

BCllr John McCloy PRESENT

TCllr Tina Brooks PRESENT

TCllr Andrew Smith PRESENT

3. Guest speakers from Tewkesbury Borough Council (TBC)

Mrs Mella McMahon – Corporate Head of Borough Development

Mr Bob Nightingale – Land Drainage and Design Consultancy Manager

4. Questions from the floor

5. Any other business

3. Janet then introduced the two guest speakers and stated that they would each give a presentation which would be followed be questions from the floor. Janet reminded the meeting that although TBC had some inadequacies in some departments over the period of the 2007 flood and since, that we must not dwell on that as we cannot change the past and must look to the future to ensure that these areas are dealt with correctly.

Mrs McMahon started by saying that Gloucester County Council (GCC) had already talked to a NACRA meeting and now it was the turn of TBC to talk about Land Drainage. She had been in charge since September 2009. Her other areas are Development Control and Building Control. She is also head of the

Joint Core Strategy for TBC with GCC and Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC).

With reference to flood prevention, the three groups have agreed options, for Supplementary Planning Discussions – the topics used were

Affordable Housing

Water Waste Management

Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation

Mr Nightingale is the Land Drainage and Design Consulting Manager. He joined TBC in February 2008, and had flood experience in other areas before joining. He deals with flood risk in Highways, Drainage and Sewerage. He also deals with PPS25 the government document on planning. Other areas he is involved with are Sustainable drainage, Flood Response Management and Maintenance.

It could be any of the following:

Land Owner

Environmental Agency (EA)

Local Authority

Lower Severn Internal Drainage Board

Severn Trent Water Ltd (STW)

Highways Authority

EA for Severn and Avon

Local Authority for all other water courses i.e. ditches and brooks etc

STW for all public sewers

Highways Authority for drainage of the roads and highways

Some roadside ditches are the landowner’s responsibility.

Land Drainage Act – extracting water for stock

Land Drainage Act – maintain water courses free flow

Ditches – keeping them running freely and helping people with problems

Planning Applications – PPS25

Flood risk

Ground water – fluvial flooding

Identify predicted extent of flooding for 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 year event.

Flood Plan, so that people affected by flooding have a ‘flood plan’

Insurance – questions asked by people who suffer from flooding as to ‘what is being done for prevention’

PPS25, used by Central Government for planning development in the various zones.

Soakaways, ponds to accept water, then trickle out at a controlled rate

Reed beds etc, improves the water quality at source.

After 2007 flooding, action plan for Parish Councils etc, working with GCC to prioritise efforts with TBC and Glos Highways under Gareth Toft.

Some Parish Councils are very active, such as Gretton and Winchcombe with local people having local knowledge.

TBC and Severn Trent Ltd have money to help launch projects.

Why has there been a flooding problem?

We do not need huge new schemes, as what we have at present should be adequate provided maintenance is applied.

At this moment, bird nesting is holding up some work.

The web site is used to inform/find problem areas with useful links to other webs i.e. GCC and EA etc.

Question – Dave Witts

Supplementary Planning Document - PPS25 TBC should bring this subject up early as possible.

Answer – Mrs McMahon

The Supplementary Planning Document hangs off the doc plan. The Joint Core Strategy will replace the local plan as fit for purpose. How do you program that work? Some other document may be coming in parallel with this.

Question

Insurance excesses, in the town hall AVIA had 88% of complaints. How are fluvial alleviations going to work? The insurance companies need to know this for their plans.

Question

Hidden culvert near Morrison’s with lots of growth and starting to stink – can you tell when that is going to be done?

Answer – Bob Nightingale

All the culverts and arches around Morrison’s will be done by GCC. There is an 88M section with larger arch and ditch going into the Carrant brook, I have had a walk around and have written to Land Registry Act and had a reply to keep water levels high, hope to get this sorted soon.

Question

Ownership – the back end of the playing fields at Northway – Have owners had a letter from you (Bob) and have they a timescale to do the work?

Answer from Bob

I have not written as I considered it low priority. Hope to write to all concerned and have work done within a month

Question

The work done so far is good but what happens if no maintenance is done?

Answer

Yes lots of good work has been done and we (TBC) need Parish Councils to keep us informed if and new work is required. Mrs McMahon added – there is a working group set up to look at the way the TBC money is being spent to see if it can be used more efficiently. TBC has increased the spend on drainage despite cut backs. We also have a good response from joint approaches with GCC and CBC using expertise.

Question

CBC has applied for £2.5M from DEFRA, while TBC has only applied for £250K, why?

Answer

It’s down to the number of properties affected by the flood. Up Hatherley and Warden Hill had many houses flooded. TBC asked for the same but not been successful.

Question from John McCloy

There is a working group set up – maybe they should review the application process.

Answer

Yes

Question

Was the reason TBC had achieved no funding, down to Bob’s poor estimates

Answer

Applications are allot better now although still not getting any money, John McCloy's suggestion is very good and will be considered.

Question from Dave Witts

Could other groups i.e. Severn and Avon Group be involved with applications?

No answer

Question from Vernon Smith

Moving forward – GCC has started doing drainage work, TBC is the ‘Drainage Board’ we want to see more working together. There is a one off maintenance grant of £32K + £120K that can be shared.

Answer

Working in partnership has already started

Question from Vernon Smith

Bob, there is no plan, no speed in working. Carrant Brook has two or three sections that have polluted water.

Answer

EA has been involved with the pollution problem

Question from Vernon Smith

We (GCC and TBC) are still not working together enough as TBC are the Land Drainage Authority and GCC have to ask for work to be done, there is no input from TBC planning. We also need more funding from TBC to complete the work.

Question from Andy Smith

What is the frequency of maintenance of ditches and water courses? And are you setting up a separate budget for this work?

Answer

Five year cycle for desalting and rough cut of sides of water course. TBC looks after its assets and asks land owners to do their part in maintenance.

Janet Farrow closed the meeting and once again thanked all for coming, and also thanked Pete Goodyear on behalf of NACRA for allowing us to use Tirlebrook School hall free of charge

A raffle was held to raise some money to support running costs of NACRA.

Meeting closed at around 2100 hrs where around 39 people attended.

Date of next meeting NACRA Committee 20th May 2010 7pm at Strings