Tag Archives: flood defence

Dedicated pump for Earl Street

Posted on by • Posted in Flood defences, Local issues • Tagged , , , , ,

http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2017-01-13/oxford-street-gets-dedicated-flood-pump-after-securing-grant/

The link provides an excellent report, including a video, about the arrival of a new pump, dedicated to flood protection for Earl Street.  In case that stops being available online here is an extract from the report, with acknowledgement and thanks to ITV:

“Today residents in Earl Street were shown a new, dedicated, mobile pump that will be available to them in the event of future floods.

Nick Hills, an Earl Street resident and member of the Oxford Flood Alliance Steering Group, applied for a grant to pay for the pump after becoming aware of Scottish and Southern Energy Network’s Community Resilience Fund. The energy company awards grants of up to £20,000 to community projects. His bid was successful and SSE awarded the full cost of the pump, which had been reduced to £19,830 by Stuart Pumps Ltd, which provides the City Council with its pumps.

Whilst we in Earl Street have been extremely well served by the local authorities in terms of flood avoidance, protection and resilience, there have been occasions in the early stages of a flood when we were desperately waiting for a decision to be made by both the Environment Agency and the City Council as to where they should deploy their limited number of mobile auxiliary pumps.
Understandably, it was impossible for either of these agencies to guarantee that we would have a pump deployed here in Earl Street while the situation was still evolving.
Now we have our own pump, as soon as the water starts to rise, we can say ‘can we have our pump?’ and it guarantees that it will be here when we need it.  – Nick Hills

 
Local MP, Nicola Blackwood, attended the pump’s unveiling today. She said while shorter-term flood projects like this are crucial, a planned flood relief channel will be a ‘game-changer’ when it comes to reducing flooding risk in the long-term.The £120m project would work by diverting flood water across the open flood plain and away from properties which currently flood.”

Finally, a big thanks from all concerned to Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks, who very generously funded the pump from their Community Resilience Fund.
 

Seacourt P&R – Key Point 1: a clash with OFAS?

Posted on by • Posted in Climate change, Flood defences, OFAS, Planning • Tagged , , , , , , , ,

 

The first image is a part of a plan, from the Environment Agency, of the proposed Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme (OFAS) north of the Botley Road. This shows (as at 16 September 2016) that a key flood defence bund is planned for that scheme, running through the area where the car park extension is proposed.

The second image shows the area for the proposed extension to the Seacourt P&R.

It is not clear that the bund and the car park extension could co-exist. OFAS will reduce the risk of flooding in Oxford, vital for people and the future prosperity of the city, not least in the face of climate change. The car park extension proposal is flawed in many ways;  the plan should be dropped.

See Key Point 2 and Key Point 3