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Scientists reveal plan to stop floods
MUCH of the flood risk faced by Pickering and Sinnington could be reduced by a system of upstream storage costing as little as £600,000 to construct.
That is the conclusion of a year-long research project by scientists and local residents who unveiled their findings at an exhibition in Pickering last week.
The Mercury spoke to some of those involved and to local people who are battling for defences for the two communities.
Professor Stuart Lane, a hydrologist at Durham University, headed the investigation by the Ryedale Flood Research Group.
A project sponsored by the Rural Economy and Land Use Research programme, it involves scientists from Durham, East Anglia and Oxford Universities looking for new ways to manage the flood risk – not just in Pickering and Sinnington, but across the country.
And for the first time, they decided to use local knowledge to aid their research in the first phase of the project based in Ryedale.
Professor Lane said: "This is not just a project about Pickering – it's about trying to find a way that allows local communities and everything they know, to be brought into flood risk management because they are the ones that have to live with it.
"But in Pickering we very rapidly realised that we had a problem that needed to be solved. Including community members shaped the problem more quickly so we were able to do the science more quickly."
He said Defra's cost-benefit scheme, which weighs the cost of flood defences against the number of properties that would be protected, meant small towns, villages and isolated properties, would never "score" enough points to justify a scheme proceeding.
Pickering's defences were costed at 6.8 million to protect just 70 properties – barely enough to score any points under the Defra scheme.
So, using local knowledge, the scientists are looking at national policies for flood risk management and whether they need to be changed and this, in turn, has brought a cheaper solution to flooding in Pickering and Sinnington than the scheme mothballed by the Environment Agency.
It proposes a network of "mini- dams" upstream of the beck and the River Seven to hold back rising water temporarily and control its release.
Using computer modelling, which was demonstrated at last week's exhibition, the scientists proved it would work.
Professor Lane, who has been the victim of flooding, said: "This could reduce the risk of flooding in Pickering and Sinnington substantially. We're not experts in costings but we don't think it's expensive – possibly 10 to 20 per cent of the cost of the scheme proposed by the Environment Agency.
"We think there is now a real commitment from the Environment Agency to try this out and I would hope that within two or three years there would have been something done."
Although the scientists are moving their research to East Sussex for the next phase of the project, they are not planning to abandon Pickering.
Professor Lane said: "I'm not going to walk away. I plan to stay in touch with residents on the flood research group and the Environment Agency to help in any way I can."
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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