£1.1 million pounds is a lot of money to most – so I balked at the total cost of the flood alleviation project that Essex County Council has spent on the flood alleviation project in West Rayleigh. The scheme which was consulted on last October (2016) is cited to protect 55 houses (in the interest of transparency, our house is one of those!) and has now been completed – November 2017. I ask is it good value for money? Well, we will only know once we get a deluge of rain. I’ve been trying to locate the original plans for the scheme on Essex County Councils website, but like most Council websites, it’s search facility doesn’t seem up to much. If it’s been designed for 1 in 100 years rainfall we may not even find out if the scheme has been successful!
More details about the scheme below
Rayleigh flood alleviation scheme gets £305k from EA
13 October 2017 / Finance & Insurance, Flood & hydrology
Ground investigations for the £800,000 scheme began in April and the scheme is set for completion in November. Â
Rochford District Council’s head of the Flood Forum, Cllr Mike Steptoe, said: “This extra funding for Rayleigh will ensure that residents benefit from added flood protection and reassurance over and above the improvements that Rochford District Council has already managed to achieve.”
The works include the construction of a small attenuation bund on a sports fields and works to increase the storage capacity of Sweyne Park pond, which had previously overflowed during periods of heavy rainfall. Â Â
In times of heavy rainfall, the new scheme will allow water to be stored on the school field before discharging through a series of land drains and into the existing surface water drainage system at a controlled rate. The pond works will help increase its storage capacity. These two measures will lower the flood risk in the areas to the west of Sweyne Park School which have suffered repeated flooding. The scheme will protect 55 residential properties.
It is certainly not an eyesore! The County and the Environment Agency should be congratulated for creating this attractive and functional landscape scheme for our town. Maybe we should encourage them to spend more in the local area (ultimately it is our taxpayers money).
it’s not an eyesore – as I said in my post it really is a case of ‘wait and see’ to see if it’s money well spent. I’m always cautious when dealing with ECC if I’m totally honest.