Investigations into West Berkshire flooding get started – as does the blame game
“West Berkshire Council quite clearly failed to take the flood warnings seriously, refusing even to accept the Environment Agency’s own predictions – which correctly forecast flood levels in the Kennet catchment in excess of the 2014 record.”
Inevitably, someone will point the finger at someone else to blame for the floods.
The anglers have come flying out of the traps on that.
Residents in the Pingewood area of West Berkshire, whose homes have been inundated with floodwater, have joined forces with neighbouring Reading & District Angling Association (RDAA) to demand answers from both West Berkshire Council and Network Rail, who they accuse of negligence and complacency.
This all relates to what they claim are poorly maintained culverts.
A report called ‘River Kennet Flooding at Pingewood – A Bad Situation Made Worse’ claims both the council and Network Rail failed to learn the lessons from the 2014 floods and ensure that floodwater was able to escape to the east underneath the Basingstoke to Reading railway line rather than backing up and flooding premises and homes.
The report illustrates how a blocked culvert under Green Park station caused increased and avoidable flooding, damage and hardship to people and premises west of the railway tracks.
RDAA president and former Reading West MP Martin Salter, together with RDAA fisheries officer Del Shackleford had been pressing both West Berkshire Council and Network Rail to clear the culvert last week before the river levels rose.
The council wrote back claiming that the river levels were unlikely to exceed the 2014 heights – in fact they have set a new record – and Network Rail claimed that the culvert was clear despite the fact that photographs, video and drone footage shows it to be blocked.
At the time of writing the area remained flooded. The floodwater has caused substantial damage to a number of residential properties in Kirton’s Farm Road, put an electricity sub-station serving 40,000 people in south Reading at risk and has done significant damage to the RDAA fisheries and accompanying infrastructure.
“We have demonstrated beyond doubt that the failure to ensure an adequate escape route for the floodwaters arriving in the Pingewood area on the evening of Friday, January 5 contributed to the excessive flooding and damage experienced by local people, businesses and organisations such as ourselves,” Mr Salter said. “Both Network Rail and WBC were notified the day before of the impending flood risk and either failed to respond with any urgency or refused to recognise that there was a problem.
“They have both contributed to making a bad situation worse than it needed to be.
“Network Rail have clearly been negligent in failing to ensure that the culvert was kept clear with only one of three pipes able to convey water to the east of their railway tracks.
“This is despite the recommendations of the 2014 Flood Review and the problem being identified during the planning process in 2019 for the new £20m Green Park Station.
“We also have serious questions to ask of West Berkshire Council who, in their role as Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) for the area, seem to be in denial that we faced any sort of serious flood risk.”
Local Kirton’s Farm Road resident Cindy Becker, whose home was flooded on Saturday morning wholeheartedly endorsed the angling club’s report and its conclusions saying: “To be flooded in unavoidable circumstances, as so many people in the country are at the moment, is difficult and disruptive.
“However, to be flooded through the negligence of others is particularly distressing, especially when it has resulted in residents not being able to get to work and many children being kept from school.
“The frustration of seeing RDAA predictions – as in 2014 – being shown to be entirely accurate, and largely ignored, is keenly felt by all residents in the area.”
West Berkshire Council’s man holding the pen on this is Stuart Gourley (Lib Dem, Clayhill), who is the portfolio older for climate action, biodiversity and recycling – and also floods.
He said he couldn’t comment on the culvert issues until an investigation had been carried out.
Network Rail were unable to comment, as they couldn’t decide which area of Network Rail was responsible for providing a comment.
“Every flood is different,” he said. “So to some extent, all the alleviation schemes are theoretical until they are tested.
“The Clayhill area was okay this year. Thatcham was more focussed on surface water flooding than river flooding. The challenge is forecasting what might happen. It's all theory until it’s tested.”
He said the ‘unexpected’ areas of flooding, mentioned by the council last week, were in Newbury along the Kennet at Northcroft Lane.
It had got an FAS in 2015, and had reduced the impact, but flooding still happened.
“As a council we are dealing with the flooding impact along all of the river systems,” he added. This includes:
- Hungerford to Theale (Kennet)
- Lambourn to Newbury (Lambourn)
- Winterbourne
- Brimpton (Enbourne)
- East Ilsley to Pangbourne (Pang)
- Streatley to Purley-on-Thames (Thames)
Along with the mopping up comes the Section 19 investigation. This is a statutory requirement on a local authority and amounts to a report on pockets of flooding.
“We have quite a few to do,” he said. “It will go to property level detail. There are maps on WBC website showing which properties were flooded internally and flood investigation reports.
“That’s where residents report it to the council. But some won’t report flooding as they worry it affects the price of their property and their insurance.
“A lot of the alleviation projects have worked… Lambourn would have been a lot worse.”
He said the issue now at Eastbury is Thames Water sewers rather than river Lambourn over flowing.
“So what work has been done to stop that has been let down by Thames Water infrastructure failures, he added. “There are sewage issues all over the district.
“I know it seems odd to say it could have been worse, but there are positives here. But with climate change we could see more of this and we need to keep investing.”
He was keen to encourage property owners to do their bit too.
“There is so much info out there to protect properties at fairly low cost, as a preventative measure,” he said. “And people should get signed up for flood alerts.”
