Sewage overpumping unit installed today by the surgery.

Paul

A DIG meeting was held to discuss the flooding events the Valley had been experiencing in February and March. Attendees were essentially DIG members local to lower Valley Rd affected by the sewage issues. The issues discussed included:

Surface water flooding along Warrendene and into the Harrow and gardens close by

Sewage leakage problems experienced in lower Valley Road and Boss Lane affecting up to 20 houses caused by prolonged rainfall

The meeting spent some considerable time talking about individual experiences, action taken to cope with incidents of flooding and help given by local agencies.

Bucks Council

It was noted that only following the Harrow flooding of 17/18^th did maintenance work on road drains start. This is work that had been requested several times via FixMyStreet by the DIG.This work is not complete yet and is viewed as a contributory factor in worsening the results of the flooding at that time.

It was decided that the DIG should write to the Chief Executive of Bucks Council to express our dissatisfaction with the service provided and to request a detailed investigation be undertaken to determine the cause of the flooding and how it might have been prevented.

Thames Water

Since losing access to Darren Trenchard, our main contact at Thames Water, we had been trying to find someone to replace him, without success. We were finally able to get some up to date intelligence on TW via an introduction thanks to Roger Hewitt. Our findings are as follows:

We were informed that TW have changed dramatically since our flooding 10 years ago, principally:

Centralisation of management and operationsChange in approach to planning. As we have seen with the DWMP although this is now a massive operation although there is precious little documentation relating to Little Marlow other than a page with reference to sewer lining, surface water management and investing in the sewage treatment works. They don’t say what they will do at Little Marlow (I guess it will be mostly increasing storage capacity to reduce releases into the Thames). There is absolutely no reference to Hughenden Valley.Equipment and resources are now centrally located in warehouses rather than, say, at the STW. This suggests our dedicated overpumping units are no longer at Marlow and in any event no one at TW probably has any knowledge of units dedicated for our use. I did receive a mail from Simon Cook (next to Chiltern Car Sales) at the weekend who said a Lanes engineer told him ‘all resources are out in use’ when he asked about the overpumping units.

The relationship has fundamentally changed in recent years with the Environment Agency. The legislation has been vastly tightened up making it far more difficult to gain approval on things like overpumping.

The response from TW during this month was agreed as being poor to useless. In effect, any call outs resulted in TW contractors visiting houses and offering sympathy but little else. There had been no help from requests for local pumping out of inspection pits or to install  overpumping units such as was put in place in 2014. However, towards the end of March, frequent tinkering took place at Spring Rising, where there was considerable flooding from an inspection pit.

Actions agreed:

We would remove all references to overpumping from the DIG website as that is something no longer reserved for us

We would write to the CEO of Thames Water to express our dissatisfaction with the recent help given. We will compare it with the much higher level of help given in 2000 and 2014. Also, to request some proper detail on the Drainage Plans for our area plus to provide us with an engineering contact who could visit us and hear our complaints.

Paul Woodford

HVRA DIG

Hi All,

               Just letting you know that I have raised a FixMyStreet for us all along this stretch to be offered sandbags to try and contain/direct any sewage leakages.

I have also let David Carroll know about this and asked him to try and help the priority on this.

I’ll let you know what occurs.

Rgds

Paul

Overnight on 17^th/18^th February, prolonged overnight rain resulted in some serious flooding at the Harrow and a number of properties along Valley Road towards the school. The road was so badly flooded that a fire appliance was needed to pump out the Harrow car park and flooded gardens.

The DIG had raised FixMyStreet cases for the road drains at the Harrow (following the October flood) and we are not convinced this work was done before this second bout of flooding.

It is understood that the road drains along that stretch of Valley Road empty directly into the stream culvert that runs from the Harrow to Deeters. The extent of the flooding suggests that there may well have been a blockage in the culvert near the Harrow. On Sunday morning the fire brigade were pumping  large amounts of flood water into the road drains opposite the school turning and this was getting away well.

We have asked David Carroll if this will be investigated. However, it seems quite possible that the fire brigade may well have cleared any blockage themselves.

Sewage System Overloaded

Down the Village Hall end of Valley Road, problems have been experienced with high sewage levels in inspection pits. Properties close to Chiltern Car Sales have placed calls with TW as they are already suffered some spillage. Others further up towards the Village Hall are experiencing full inspection pits along with unusable downstairs toilets etc.

The sewage junction in the field below the pumping station has spilled sewage on a number of occasions recently and the area is fenced off now so TW have clearly been visiting there.

The very high levels of rain made the DIG start thinking about the Thames Water overpumping units which had been used in 2014 to ease the sewage problems. Now, any enquiries about these has been pretty much fruitless.

The Stream

The stream is now running throughout the village and at pace. There have been concerns about the area of the pumping station where the stream, springs and road drain run-off all have to navigate their way round and under the pumping station. Fortunately the water appears to be running easily through into the field (Seven Springs Field?) without any backing up anywhere. Not pretty but it’s working.

Paul Woodford

HVRA DIG

Hi All,

               In case you are not already aware, last night’s heavy rainfall has resulted in some serious flooding further up the valley, resulting in the Harrow being flooded again and also a number of gardens along Valley Road from the Harrow as far as the turning into the school.

Down the Village Hall end of Valley Road, we also are experiencing problems with high sewage levels in our inspection pits. Just 3-4 weeks ago, it seemed quite possible that we would escape the winter without any surcharge problems, but that appears not to be the case now. Properties close to Chiltern Car Sales have placed calls with TW as they are already suffered some spillage. Others further up towards the Village Hall are experiencing full inspection pits along with unusable downstairs toilets.

Our stretch of the stream is now running faster, so it’s as well to check that your garden section is clear of any detritus etc to ensure it runs through OK to avoid any other potential flooding.

The sewage junction in the field below the pumping station is clearly spilling sewage and the area is fenced off now so TW have clearly been visiting there.

We will be pushing for the supply of overpumping to be implemented.

Paul Woodford

18 Feb 2024

               I thought I would drop an update around as there are one or two things going on that might be of interest and it’s coincided with my having to drum up an article for the Hughenden News. As a result this update is a bit wordy…..

1. The Stream
   1. According to official statistics, the rainfall across South East England from November to January was 21.1mm; this compares to the long term average of 16.5mm for the same period. This was above average with most rain having fallen in December and frankly the rainfall seemed much more than this. The net result is that our winterbourne stream is showing in its upper reaches. At the end of January, the springs could be seen bubbling up in the ditch outside Spring Rising and even emerging from the middle of the culvert brickwork beside the pumping station. It is now flowing in the back gardens along Valley Road in the vicinity of the Village Hall.
   2. Normally at this time of the year, when the winterbourne stream is flowing and the water table is rising we expect to see signs of the sewers becoming full. This year there presently seems no threat of this happening as a brief check on the sewers suggests they are running normally, unless you know to the contrary that is.
2. Road Drains
   1. I’ve done a walk through the Valley checking road drains and that has shown that many are blocked with leaves, twigs and other detritus, to be expected perhaps after the winter. We have to count ourselves fortunate that the drainage system has coped during this time and we have not suffered massive levels of rainfall such as has happened in so many areas of the country. We have reported the state of the road drains via FixMyStreet and have requested a substantial operation to clear drains throughout the Valley. I’ve asked David Carroll to lend some impetus to this. Additionally, we have asked that the kerbsides are swept throughout the village as they, too, are in a poor state. It is worth saying that we requested the road drains outside the Harrow to be cleared in October following their flooding but that remains to be done, so we have to hope that this work can be prioritised soon.
3. Thames Water
   1. As reported in November, our contact in the planning area at TW, Darren Trenchard has departed to another area in the company and we have been left with no replacement contact, which makes it difficult getting hold of meaningful updates. I have directed an email to the Developer Services group and posed a simple request to them but there has been no response so far.
   2. Darren suggested when he left that I contact Customer Feedback for help. Following speaking to them I was referred to Developer Services, who then transferred me to Operations. Operations said yes, they could help and gave me a particular telephone number to ring, which actually turned out to be Developer Services…..waste of time.
   3. I have mailed Alan Beechey at the Chiltern Society to see if he can offer any advice as to who we might speak to.
4. Bucks CC Drainage Engineer Contact
   1. Well, we don’t have one since Jonathan Roberts left us. I am hoping we may be able to establish a contact through the FixMyStreet app.

Rgds

Paul

HVRA DIG