14 July 2010

 

Our response to the EA on their proposals for further short-term mesures for Oxford:

 

Oxford Short Term Measures 2

Thank you for asking for comments on your proposals. Here are ours:

 

Willow Walk - fine.

 

Hinksey Stream - welcome. We hope the work will include removal of the trees which seem to be actually in the stream upstream of the bridge.

 

Wareham Stream - we think that it is hardly worth maintaining the stream if the sluices are not renovated. Both inlets from Castle Mill Stream are useless, and the sluice at the brewery is not operated. Therefore in a flood there is not much flow.

 

Other ideas

We are disappointed that other, more ambitious, options were not pursued. We believe there are many things in our document “Building on Success - Suggestions for medium-term measures to further reduce the risk of flooding in Oxford and the surrounding area” launched this March, which would be well worth doing and we look forward to discussing them with you soon.

 

Lamarsh Road

In the meantime, our top priority remains to achieve a new flood route via Lamarsh Road in the now very limited time available. We understand that you share this wish and are working hard at it, which we appreciate. For now we would rather achieve this than anything else, as we made plain at our meeting in South Hinksey in March. If funding is not possible in any other way then we think money should be diverted from one or other of the Short Term Measures 2. They could be done later, whereas Lamarsh can’t.

It would be dreadful to fail to implement the Lamarsh scheme. Doing so, on the other hand, would be a great success and improve the lot of many people who have been flooded repeatedly and remain at high risk.

 

Oxford Flood Alliance, July 13th 2010.