The works along Valley Road near the bottom of Coombe Lane to improve the road surface water drainage are now complete. We had hoped that the lips to drives affected by the surface water would be raised, but this has not happened so far.

Jonathan Roberts of TFB provided us with a plan of the drain, pipe and chamber work undertaken, which is on the Documents web page. Jonathan also provided an update on the work:

“As you will see we have effectively provided at least a 50% increase in capacity for the existing drainage system within the verge areas. We believe this is essential to remove the surface water as quickly as possible from the areas of carriageway and in particular at the junction of Coombe Lane and Valley Road.

At this junction all flows from these roads are currently channelled into an existing 225mm pipe which has now been doubled to provide the additional capacity required to quickly remove these flows to the area of the ditch. Clearly the existing single 225m carrier pipe with ‘blind’ gully connections in this area was inadequate with the corresponding flows remaining on the carriageway surface.

This arrangement should also assist in releasing the flows within the existing network approaching the junction with Combe Lane from Valley Road and reduce the amount of surface water retained on the carriageway surface.”

Bucks CC have provided us with a link to their Land Drainage Enforcement Policy document. This covers the Council’s responsibilities and powers for the management of watercourses in Bucks. 

In our particular case, HVDIG have been involved with Bucks CC regarding the Hughenden stream, especially where the council is both owner of a section and also the policy enforcer. HVDIG would recommend that residents or businesses in Hughenden Valley who have the Hughenden Stream running through their property should make themselves familiar with this document as it has important implications for them.

A link to the document is on the Documents page.

This month we have seen the return of TFB to Valley Road and the promised works have continued. 

Just one additional road drain is planned in this round of work – this is located by the bus stop outside village hall community shop. 
The bulk of the work is targeted at improving the flow of surface water piped underground from the bottom of coombe lane through to the open ditch that runs down to the pumping station. 

To this end, an additional pipe is being added (two exist underground at present) and also several chambers are being added to help flow, connections and access.

Any works to improve the road camber will be the subject of future works, but we understand that the current round of work should involve raising the lip to drives to the houses that have been flooded in the past. 

The DIG AGM this year will be held on Wednesday 11th July at 7.30pm at Paul & Carolyn Woodford’s home (Elwood, Valley Road – located 4 houses down from the wooden bus stop on the east side of Valley Road).  

In mid-May Transport for Bucks started the long expected improvements to the village hall area of Valley Road in an attempt to improve the road drainage. 

The major part of the work carried out so far is the jetting of pipes and culverts. also the clearing of the ditch that runs down to the pumping station. This is all very welcome.

We had thought that additional drains would be installed and indeed at one point traffic lights were set up, but then apart from the delivery of some large pipes, now resting under the birches, little more has happened. However, we understand that a further round of work will start soon…….

The night of Sunday 27th May saw a prolonged series of thunderstorms across the country, with many areas experiencing flooding from the accompanying rain.

In the valley, we suffered a fair amount and the thunder was very loud on several occasions. However, as far as Valley Road was concerned, this coped better than usual with the downpour. In fairness, we have seen harder rain and for longer periods, but during the very intense periods, Valley Road did not become overly awash nor did the drains become overwhelmed.

We saw the rain flowing along the pavement at a fair rate, but as far as we know nobody had water run down their drives and into their garages.

During the heaviest rain late in the evening my wife and I checked the state of the road from our front bedroom and noticed an individual moving in the area of the bus stop opposite the village hall. He appeared to be taking photos of the drains, and would then disappear for a few minutes before returning and doing it again. He was not dressed for the weather and looked like he was getting drenched. We had thought this to be a neighbour accumulating evidence of a problem, but did not recognise who it was, nor could we understand it because the road drains seemed to be coping well.

Several days later,  the mystery was solved. Debs Lemon had received a mail from Jonathan Roberts, project engineer with TFB. He had indicated that after the clearing of ditches and the jetting of the road drainage system in Valley Road near the hall, a camera survey was carried out. This was then to be analysed with a view determining the extent of the second part of the drainage improvements.

In his mail, Jonatan revealed that he had been in the area when the thunderstorm was at its height on Sunday 27th and had taken the opportunity to take videos of how the drainage system actually worked when under pressure. This was an invaluable experience as far as he was concerned; previously both Debs Lemon and I sent images and short video clips to TFB, but it must help for Robert to have seen it for himself.

TFB are now deciding on a number of measures to increase capacity of the system and increase the rate of removal of surface water from the carriageway. In the slightly longer term, Jonathan has recommended that the carriageway is reprofiled because it has very little camber, hence surface water will remain on the surface for longer and increase the amount of the splashing. This combined with the improvements to the drainage should make the situation a lot better.   

On Saturday 16th September we saw a short – and no doubt very localised – downpour in Hughenden Valley. As is so often the case, Valley Road became awash and pavements were flooded, a danger to motorists and pedestrians alike.  

Debs Lemon produced a 5 minute video of the event and this will be made available to Transport for Bucks for analysis. Hopefully this will help them refine plans for improving the road drainage in the village hall area.  

The full video can be seen at: https: //youtu.be/J4u-V4ZRDGA

The road flooding of 18th July was reported to Transport for Bucks (thanks to Debs Lemon) which resulted in a visit by James to investigate. Apart from a single partially silted up inspection chamber, the road drains were essentially found to be in good order, and it was clear that the massive downpour simply overwhelmed the system.

An order has been raised to clear the gullies, really as a precautionary measure. It was mentioned that TFB are fully aware of the problems with this stretch of the road and that it may be the subject of a future capital scheme.

We had also raised an enquiry about the blockage of the pipe down by the pumping station. James inspected this on his visit but did not consider the weeds or fencing across the pipe as requiring attention.  

Thames Water have been spotted peering into the sewers in the Valley during last week. We understand that they are conducting routine CCTV surveys to check on the health of the sewers. All looking good so far!

Angus Idle forwarded us a mail from Jerry Morley late last week. Jerry had noticed that although the Council’s recent work to clear the ditches had gone well, the culvert opposite the tunnel that comes under the road from Buildbase was effectively blocked.

Following receipt of Jerry’s mail, a couple of us went down to the pumping station suitably armed with rakes, forks etc. After a bit of scraping around, we were able to see what Jerry was referring to, as you can see from the photo attached – we hadn’t even appreciated there was a culvert hidden under the trees. The culvert is directly opposite the exit of the tunnel that comes under the road from Buildbase, and in fact the photo shown was taken by me from inside the tunnel.

If you look carefully at the picture you can see that there is a pipe there going into the pumping station grounds, it is somewhat obscured by the fence. The trees sit directly over the pipe but the roots etc don’t appear to interfere with the pipe or prevent water to flow into it, but it was not easy to check. We scratched away the weeds that were in front of this pipe, so the area immediately in front of it is clear.

We recall from when the stream was last flowing in earnest that much of the water turns left when emerging from under the road and runs left along the front of the pumping station before then doing a right turn into the field. There are weeds along this stretch and now some rubble left by Affinity’s recent work at the corner of the site  – see photo. 

It may be worth cutting the fence from around the entrance to the pipe but we would I guess need to get Affinity Water to do that. Certainly the weeds might best be cut. Meanwhile, any water will flow without a problem, all we need is some rain.

We have mailed Alex Back of Bucks CC to update him and to ask if he considers there to be an issue here that needs to be addressed by Bucks CC and/or Affinity.