Flood protection, wildlife & environment is always a one sided view.

The impact of wildlife organisations on locally managed flood projects is a concern. They seem to be free to make unsubstantiated statements whilst pursuing their objectives with little public visibility, criticism or professional oversight and it is a growing problem. It is a situation becoming increasingly familiar and yet another example of our growing democratic deficit where minorities impose their ambitions on the majority. The Somerset Levels, the Parrett Estuary and Bridgwater’s need for a flood defence from the sea has brought many of these parties with their own agenda to one location each focusing on what they consider to be important. Bridgwater seems to be well down the list of importance despite the planned construction of the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier. The purpose of this article is to provide an explanation as to how this is happening.

Context

Bridgwater currently builds around 500 houses a year and if that rate continues at even half that rate for the next 100 years we could expect to see the number of houses in Bridgwater rise by 25,000 taking another 700Ha (1,700 acres) of land for housing and a further 300Ha needed for employment. This 1,000Ha’s will see Bridgwater’s existing footprint grow by at least 50%, The 25,000 houses and associated economic development will generate perhaps 300,000m³ of clays and soil waste.

With flat and level land needed for employment land at the old BAE site and at Horsey offer the only other viable employment options to Bridgwater and they are to the northwest. New housing will be forced onto good quality farmland south along the A38 swallowing up North Petherton and eventually meeting Taunton coming the other way and to the west developing the land between Bridgwater and Cannington. Bridgwater will consume its high value agricultural land on the hills as it, like the rest of the country, continues to build our outdated ideas of housing.

Bridgwater will therefore become an even more difficult place to live and work as the gap between residential development and employment continue to grow. Every day a large part of Bridgwater’s population will get up and drive along the A38 and A39 to get to work. Bridgwater will not even start considering a bypass until 2040.

Apart from the normal lack of imagination by planners and developer’s Sedgemoor’s (Bridgwater) greatest problem now appears to be the wildlife and flood pressure groups that seem to take an extreme view in the pursuit of what they consider to be in their interest. They show little tolerance or understanding that people also live on the Levels and in Bridgwater and ignor the EU directives that accept people must come first. The true impact of their objectives is concealed and never addressed.

These organisations also seem immune from any need to consider facts in their statements whilst criticising property developers for the smallest omission. The irony that is they now ape those same commercial organisations in assembling land and changing its use without considering its long term impact on the wider local population and it should be lost on no one.

Some typical examples

Steart Peninsula

The local economic benefits alluded to as part of the original Steart Peninsula planning application remain unproven and therefore represent little tangible benefit to the local population yet quoted as fact by The Severn Vision statements.

The Severn Vision

This plan will expand the existing saltmarsh by 833% around the Severn Estuary and in Bridgwater’s case large areas of agricultural land removed from food production and converted from a freshwater environment to a saltwater one (intertidal habitat). To date two phases have been completed; The Steart Peninsula and the RSPB reserve (funnded by Bristol Ports) both of which remove economic activity and destroy an existing habitat to create another. A process little different from modern housing development. Whilst an argument might be made on the basis of geography for these two areas to be returned to the sea no such argument exists for the destruction of Pawlett Hams and Chilton Trinity including areas of the SSI.

This is a process promoted by the following organisations

Wildlife and Wetlands
The Wildlife Trusts
RSPB
National Trust
Campaign for Rural England (CPRE)
Severn Rivers Trust

With regard to Bridgwater it makes claims regarding carbon savings whilst ignoring the collateral effect of moving Bridgwater’s housing developments onto higher quality agricultural land and increasing commuting distances. Also ignored is the loss of food production on 5,000 acres of land and the transfer of that food production overseas. It is particularly misleading in its statements with regard to Bridgwater providing no supporting evidence as to the negative benefit that it has considered in any balanced and holistic way. It is completely one sided yet already two key elements have been delivered, Steart Peninsula and RSPB reserve. The Bridgwater Tidal Barrier will deliver the southern land at Chilton Trinity and Pawlett Hams .

Bridgwater Tidal Barrier

The Environment Agency and Sedgemoor District Council’s Dec 2018 public consultation made a claim with regard to the lack of any environmental impact of this scheme. The EA and SDC have not considered environmental impacts beyond the immediate area of the scheme despite this scheme imposing restrictions on economic development forcing residential development to the south and west of Bridgwater and employment to the northwest of the town.

It is worth noting that HPC looked at issues far beyond the immediate area of the power plant when it did its enviromental impact assessment.

Environmental Impact Statement

This statement above cannot be true as

Seawater is shown overtopping the river banks onto the existing farmland, the fact that it is seawater is misleading.
The farmland at Chilton Trinity and Pawlett Hams will be poisoned for agriculture through the introduction of saltwater
The existing wildlife that requires a freshwater environment will be destroyed.
The location of the borrow pits, which side of the secondary flood defence, was not shown. The plan to excavate 100,000m3 of material will create a lake of nearly 13 acres that will act as a reservoir for saltwater.
1,400 acres of high quality farmland suitable will be unnecessarily developed invariable towards North Petherton and Cannington as this scheme will convert 1,400 acres of low quality farmland that could have been used to saltmarsh.
100 years of lost food production on 2400 acres of farmland.
100,000m3 of clay will be unnecessarily excavated from the land being protected whilst during the same period 300,000m3 will be produced as waste through normal housing and industrial construction activities. (the secondary flood defences do not need to be completed to the full height during intial construction
Denying economic development in the north-west will increase commuting efforts in the local community generating avoidable C02; the scheme ensures the increased separation of employment areas from housing.

The claims regarding this scheme are questionable at best and the lack of information misleading at worse. The extract from the EA/SDC public display indicates a plan to create a stepping-stones for species that are not identified.

Campaign for Rural England (CPRE)

The CPRE’s support for The Severn Vision that results in the wholesale destruction of a large area of our existing productive landscape and the equivalent of 10 500 acre farms is not what we imagined their core mission to be that says

“We campaign for a beautiful and living countryside. We work to protect, promote and enhance our towns and countryside to make them better places to live, work and enjoy, and to ensure the countryside is protected for now and future generations.”

How allowing saltwater (seawater) onto productive farmland that has taken 500 years to remove the salt from seems a strange way of protecting our countryside.

Somerset’s Wild Trust (SWT)

Another supporter of The Severn Vision.

Somerset’s Wild Trust’s website says

Since the 2013-14 flooding events, the dominant narrative in the floodplains has focussed on hard engineering schemes and dredging to reduce flood risk, overlooking flood risk reduction techniques that work with nature and provide a range of benefits to society. A future is developing where more public money will be spent on fossil fuel intensive dredging and pumping, to further drain the peat soils of the Levels, thus releasing more carbon and exacerbating climate change. As peat is drained, it shrinks, lowering land height and making the area ever more vulnerable to extreme weather. Well-informed debate on the future of Somerset’s low-lying areas in the face of rising sea level is limited, so a further vital part of our work on the Levels is to communicate a more optimistic narrative which gives nature its proper value.

This statement ignores that the Somerset Level’s is an artificial environment that needs regular maintenance and seems to conflate the need to dredge Somerset’s rivers and the need to get pluvial flows from the upper Parrett catchment areas to the sea bypassing the levels storage with an idea that somehow this process is designed to shrink the peat. “A future is developing where more public money will be spent on fossil fuel intensive dredging and pumping, to further drain the peat soils of the Levels, thus releasing more carbon and exacerbating climate change” is a particularly spurious and misleading statement. It sounds like people are secretly pumping water off the levels as some sort of conspiracy.

Anyone with any knowledge of the Levels would know that retaining water levels is just as important to the Levels as draining them. No one is going to drain the peat. Well informed debate requires informed knowledge and that is clearly not the case with this statement by the SWT.

FLAG Flooding on the Levels Action Group

FLAG reflects its single issue origins seemingly taking its position on Somerset’s farming industry geographically from the lands relationship to Moorland and what is best for Moorland.

A post (Nov 2018) supporting Somerset’ s farming industry on the Levels was made by FLAG making Brexit the largest threat to farmers in anticipation of a nonexistent trade deal with the US; no doubt the cause of the 2014 flood and global warming will in time also be subscribed to Brexit.

FLAG’s postion downstream of Moorland at Chilton Trinity and Pawlett Hams is quite different. Flag is altogther less compasionate regarding the farmers there having their land flooded with saltwater to alleviate upstream flooding. Concern is simply dismissed by a statement worthy of Marie Antoinette “let them raise salt beef or lamb”. It completely ignores that the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier has already destroyed land values for 2,400 acres of land and food production we might have gained. Reverse nimbyism seems to apply; as long the flooding is on someone else’s land FLAG appears to be happy whilst refuses even the smallest tacit support for or willingness to consider alternatives tht might have a better outcome for the wider community.

Conclusion

Whilst our wildlife organisations may have started with good intentions what is clear is that many people associated with these organisations simply don’t understand the mechanisms of the Somerset Levels, the impact of what they propose (The Severn Vision) and in most cases don’t care if it doesn’t suit their agenda. They fail to consider that ultimately the economy pays for everything and destroying local economies will ultimately call into question the viability of protecting our environment; the ratepayer maintains the roads used to get to our wildlife sites and will pay or make a significant financial contribution to the cost to the current planned defences and the their subsequent replacements. A case of shooting the goose that lays the Golden Egg of in this case chasing away industry and people.

It is clear that many organisations support the existing proposals to turn the Parrett Estuary into a saltmarsh. The decision by SDC and the EA not to commission an economic impact assessment has allowed those organisations and the Environment Agency to create the worst possible long term economic future as there is no assessment mechanism other than the government investment rules to measure the value of this scheme. Allowing the undermining Somerset’s agricultural industry, wasteful development and not working towards an integrated low energy society is not what we should be doing.

08/10/201809/10/2018

Bridgwater Tidal Barrier Final Public Consultation

Ahead of the forthcoming last public consultation on the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier (BTB) the rate and tax payers might consider asking what becomes of Bridgwater after the BTB reaches the end of its design life?

The answer is simple.

if there is no barrier capable of keeping the rising sea out there will be no house insurance, no mortgages and Bridgwater the town will not be a viable place to live.

Our present proposed EA flood defence scheme is based on retreating as far back from the sea as we can, it deliberately puts our backs to the wall On one side of the barrier we will ultimately have the inter tidal habitat (the sea) and on the other our housing and industry.

No space is being provided behind the proposed barrier to create another bigger one. As a consequence there will be nowhere to go with a replacement that does not have a huge and unnecessary price tag. There is an irony that land at Chilton Trinity returned to the sea under the present scheme and the planned managed realignment in 2055 will be inadvertently reclaimed under a downstream replacement barrier albeit land now poisoned with salt.

With sea level rise continuing for hundreds of years past the design life of the BTB one would expect that as responsible people we would give some consideration to what happens next. Unfortunately, like so many things in need of fixing and investment we seem content to kick the problem into future refusing even to consider how we might make some provision to help those that follow us.

Many years an Arup engineer called Poul Beckmann wrote the opening sentence of a document with the line “Human nature is that we put off until tomorrow what we should do today”. Never has that been more true today than in Somerset. Somerset’s failure to develop a realistic, affordable and sustainable long-term strategy is unforgivable. It really is time for some of the promises made by our political leadership on this issue to be delivered and people stop making excuses why things cannot be done. Simply working our way through the Somerset 20 years plan and saying the future is not our business is irresponsible and unacceptable.

what was the question?

The SRA was asked “What is the SRA and its partners working assumption for the replacement of the existing scheme and barrier?

The written answer received from the SRA answer is in blue

From day one, the tidal barrier will be designed in such a way that it will still provide a 1 in 1,000-year standard of protection in 2125. The design includes an allowance for climate change up to 2125.

Climate change does not stop in 2125!!!!
1:1,000 sounds good but its just the margin on the starting point and degrades over time. The Dutch use 1;10,000 and maintain it as the level of protection.

The downstream defences will be designed in such a way that they will still provide a 1 in 200-year standard of protection in 2055, with allowance for further adaption for climate change over time.

2055 is important because this is the date from which managed realignment is implemented under Policy 7d39 of the Shoreline Management Plan.

It is to be expected that any piece of infrastructure would need updating after 100 years. We cannot decide now how future generations may wish to live or what their priorities for infrastructure will need to be. This is why, for example, there are plans for the Thames Barrier to be re-built in future decades but decisions on exactly where and what will be required are deliberately being left for later.

Building the barrier in the town as planned does not give those in the future choices but leaves them no choice to but to go downstream and use land we have previously given back to the sea and to abandon the £100M investment the present scheme will have cost.
The response attempts to conflate the need to replace the 1970’s Thames Barrier as a reason not to make provision today for a replacement in Somerset. if you know you have to replace something why would you not plan for the replacement? Its an excuse.
We should be learning the lessons of the past rather than making a virtue of repeating the failures that the SRA reply implies.

The Thames Barrier Myth

The continual portrayal Thames Barrier shown on TV as an iconic single barrier solution is misleading; the barrier is actually part of the Thames Estuary flood defence system comprising not one but eight individual tidal barriers that all shut together. Five of the eight barriers are closer to Bridgwater’s situation than the “Thames Barrier”. They are however where they should be at the mouth of the rivers they defend not 5 miles upstream as with Bridgwater’s Tidal Barrier.

Using the Thames Barrier as an excuse for not planning a replacement in Somerset is particularly disingenuous for a number of reasons.

Nearly 60 years ago when the Thames Barrier was designed climate change was not understood as it is now. There was little provision for sea level rise just the post Ice Age tilt of the south of England to consider.
The Thames Barrier is upstream of what were active docks that had navigation rights in the Thames Estuary.
In Somerset we have a topography in the form of the Polden Hills, Pawlett Hill and Stockland Bristol that we can link and use to our advantage. London does not have such a luxury.
All the Thames Barrier replacement options move the replacement barrier downstream perhaps as far as Tilbury. (July 2016 update)
The most frequent use of the Thames Barrier is now the management of fluvial flood water rather than tidal surge. Something Bridgwater is not designed to do.
Sedgemoor District Council is able to reserve space for a bridge over the Parrett south of Dunball should its not be doing the same for a replacement barrier?

The collective response is No ; there is no plan.

The SRA, EA and SDC were conformed as having contributed to the response

Bridgwater Tidal Barrier; the Questions the public need to Ask

Once the question “how will the proposed Bridgwater Tidal Barrier be replaced?” the present scheme simply looks out of date and poor value for money.

The Bridgwater Tidal Barrier is repeating the same mistake as was made with the Thames Barrier system setting it as far upstream as possible. Because of the selected location a replacement would like the Thames Barrier have to go downstream towards Combwich. Confused? We should be.

When you go to public consultation some questions worth asking;

How will the proposed Bridgwater Tidal Barrier be replaced?”
What becomes of Bridgwater after sea level rise exceeds the design basis of the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier?
Why is there no long-term plan or vision for what comes next?
Why is the ratepayer required to provide money to raise river banks money protecting land at Chilton Trinity when the planned sea water flooding will make it of no economic value?
Why is not improving fluvial flow in the river system part of the scheme?
Why did the cost of the scheme almost double after the location was decided on?

23/08/201830/08/2018

Sustainable Flood Defence

The UK has a serious problem with leadership and sustainable construction where flood defence is concerned. There is a profound lack of critical thinking in the delivery of future UK flood defences and an unwillingness by agencies to get their hands dirty at a local level. As a consequence government continues to fail regarding sustainability and value for money; taxpayer funded agencies seem unable or unwilling to work together. It is a situation compounded by wildlife and environmental organisations who have seen an opportunity to gain control of and modify land in much the same way that monasteries such as Glastonbury once did.

Flood defence schemes are invariably seen in terms of a definable project that can be closed rather than the first step of a sustainable long term solution. The protected community needs to live with and manage these schemes for 100’s of years after they are built. Our thinking on delivery is just too short and too expensive when it is a 300 year or so problem and especially when the initial solution only has a 100 year design life; it makes little sense. There is an obvious gap. That gap means that today’s options should at least consider what happens next. Should we really be adopting a solution today requiring the construction of a replacement barrier tomorrow rather than a scheme today that has provision or a plan for extending it already built in? Our current scheme takes planned obsolescence to a new level.

We should not be closing out future options for the generations that follow and we should follow our own rules for sustainable development

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Delivery of the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier continues to be an exemplar of non-sustainable thinking. Part of the scheme requires the river banks between the tidal barrier and the village of Combwich to be maintained. The EA’s plan to do this work as part of the barrier construction contract. Material is to be dug from the adjacent protected fields and where a future Northern Bridgwater Bypass might be routed. Sedgemoor District Council (SDC) have protected in the Local Plan a potential crossing point on the River Parrett just south of the A38 roundabout at Dunball.

Clearly excavating Chilton Trinity’s fields and creating a series of salt water pits that creates an ideal future breeding ground for salt marsh breeding mosquito’s is not what people have considered the consequence to be. It is far from impossible that in a generation Chilton Trinity and Combwich may ultimately become uninhabitable because of this excavation process rather than from the increased flood risk. Managing mosquito borne diseases may well become the larger challenge in low lying areas as our climate warms up. It is difficult to see how the EA could contemplate the creation of such a situation.

With whole life costs of the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier reaching £100M for a barrier, secondary banks and the raised river banks; banks that need continual raising means we need to consider modification of the delivery model to get the costs of this project under control.

That whole life cost also ignores the 100 year economic impact, both locally and nationally, of losing 1000’s of acres of productive agricultural land notwithstanding the questionable morality of a food importing country choosing to export more of its food production offshore.

If we are going to build the solution we have we need better and more economic delivery solutions than is currently proposed. We can then at least ameliorate the present situation with a better delivery system.

Brexit allows the modification of the EU water and waste directives that have now been written into UK law. We can now change the way in which we manage waste for the better.

Sustainable Construction

Every year Sedgemoor will build 5-600 houses and the excavation of foundations and drains for each of these houses will create around 15-20m3 of waste material (clay) suitable for re use as bank raising fill material. Sedgemoor’s planned housing developments will create around 9,000m3 per year that currently must be paid for to be disposed of. Housing developers could supply all the material needed to raise the banks. That is sustainable construction.

Over the 100 years life of the barrier there could be as much as 900,000 m3 of material we need to find a home for; material that could be used to build up the banks and preserve the land we have at Chilton Trinity for future generations. Even if the volume is only 10% of the possible amount its probably enough to avoid digging up land at Chilton Trinity.

Under present EA proposals the EA is going to pay landowners for material that other organisations with similar material must pay to dispose of. We are meant to be reducing this sort of activity not making the situation worse.

We simply don’t need to get all the work in place in 2024; we need just enough to maintain the flood defence need and then use local resources to progressively deliver the longer-term solution with a local benefit to the economy. This work could be collectively done by local contractors under the supervision of either the EA or the Drainage Board. There is simply no engineering need for the EA to wantonly and unnecessarily destroy our landscape when cheaper and more sustainable alternatives are available.

NB there is only an intent to continue to raise the river banks

To put this into perspective that recycled material would

build a bank 5m high bank from the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier to Combwich.
raise the banks and build the secondary flood defences up to match climate change.
raise the banks, build the secondary flood defence and start building new defences north from Pawlett Hill towards Highbridge.

5m high and nearly 5 miles long, 100 years of digging house foundations

Sea Level Rise

Sea level rise is not expected to slow for at least 300 years making both the barrier redundant as the river banks can only be raised perhaps another metre before they overload the poor ground conditions of the Parrett Estuary. Ultimately the long term plan for Chilton Trinity and Pawlett Hams’s will be realised.

The continued conditioning of the population by the EA to passively accept surrender to the sea as the first option for non-London areas of the UK is disingenuous and defeatist and never mind its land we need to grow food on.

Way Forward

At £100M the present solution for the Bridgwater Tidal barrier is clearly neither sustainable or affordable. A situation that needs to be laid at the door of the Government, Somerset Rivers Authority and specifically the EA and Sedgemoor District Council (SDC) who provide joint project oversight. We need

Sustainability in what we do is placed at the centre of our plans
An independent inquiry into how flood defence is being delivered in Somerset.
A peer review of the BTB project into how it has arrived where it has.

16/12/201716/12/2017

Sedgemoor, will the HPC community monies provide a real legacy?

Bridgwater and the surrounding district area of Sedgemoor continues to be dominated by claims regarding the benefits of the HPC monies. This is money the community received as part of the planning process; will it actually be a tangible legacy? The litmus test might be an imaginary HPC plaque similar to the blue ones put on buildings remembering that famous people were born or lived there. In a generation or so could we take our children around the district pointing to things that we got because of HPC? The answer is probably No.

HPC has for Bridgwater and the surrounding area been like winning the lottery and like many winners the win has been frittered away on things that would in time have come anyway. New Infrastructure is always good value but difficult to do cheaply in our crowded and over developed land yet Sedgemoor until recently had everything on a plate, time, available strategic land in the right place and money. Bridgwater Cellophane site (BCL) factory in Bath Road cleared and the old Bridgwater Livestock Market cleared on the other side of the railway provided a unique opportunity to do something constructive with our HPC legacy to the benefit of the local town., its residents, businesses and the economy. Transport and communication is all.

Like the Somerset Flood Action Plan that did little more than recognise the EA’s lack of maintenance that had been permitted across the Somerset Levels whilst the EA had previously spent £20M on the Steart Peninsular project; the HPC legacy is more of the same, money is without doubt being squandered in the wrong places. Sedgemoor did it before with the now demolished Splash when it sold the Lido to Morrisons, its decision not to go for a Northern Bridgwater bypass a recent example and not to spend this money strategically and well when you have the opportunity is not a track record to be proud of.

A quick look back

Bridgwater over 40 years like most towns has changed. Once our manufacturing sites were spread throughout the town, Clarke’s beside the railway station, Wellworthy in Colley Lane, Gerber in Wembdon, Cryptons in Bristol Road, Van Heusen and Leffmans in Bath Road. The multiple locations and predominance of cycling to get to work meant our road system could quickly absorb and dissipate traffic whether on two or four wheels. Employment and where we live have become divided, employment has largely migrated to the outskirts of town mostly to the north and we mostly live in the south and west with development slowly marching towards North Petherton. If not we have to find our way over one of the inadequate number or river and rail crossings we have. The Railway and the River Parrett dominate how we live.as they divide Bridgwater into a series of strips running north to south.

Every day the town get up and has to traverse the Cross Rifles roundabout whether to commute, shop go to school or get to the bus and rail stations largely because of the Bath Road railway bridge. There is no sign of a plan to deal with this problem.

What could have been done

In my view two related and not too grand things to improve the town and areas with HPC money could have been done. and still should be pursued.

Move the Bridgwater Railway Station north onto the then empty BCL and market sites and include a public foot/cycle path over the railway.
Extend The Drove through to the market site linking the NDR directly to relocated railway station.

Alternative Bridgwater Railway Station Location

This would put the railway station near business, the Bridgwater College, The McMillan Theatre and on existing bus routes. HPC workers could have arrived by train directly to the HPC accommodation on Bath Road. Rail would provide a viable alternative to inward commuting. Encourage people going to work in the town to cycle. avoiding the Cross Rifles roundabout. If you cant fix the road at least give people choice of other methods to get to work or to the station. There is no bus link to the existing station.

Bridgwater Railway Station is simply of the wrong era has short low platforms and is in the wrong place. It serves nobody at the end of St John Street. Spending money on it is throwing good money after bad. Its time is up.

With the delay of HPC starting and the availability of these sites there was plenty of time to ensure the HPC legacy was used to secure long term infrastructure benefits that would generate increased economic activity. Activity that would in turn generate wealth that would have multiplied the HPC money many times over in the generations to come, there is simply no excuse for the lack of vision and competency shown at County and District Level.

26/05/201709/06/2017

Somerset Flooding- A silver lining lost

A year or so ago when Sedgemoor District Council (SDC) and the Environment Agency started work on the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier (BTB) scheme they jointly decided not to spend money on an economic impact assessment.

As a result of that decision there is now no way for councillors, ratepayers and business to measure and benchmark the wider commercial and economic impacts of BTB project. The project is now simply valued and measured by government rules. This is especially important for those ratepayers and the HoW LEP who will directly pay for a proportion of this scheme. For Somerset’s councillors there is no visibility of the potential direct local (Somerset wide) benefit. With a preferred location agreed and the full details still yet to be seen or shown to the public it is difficult to see how the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier can be proceeding as it is.

There is a need to scrutinise the EA’s proposed Bridgwater Tidal Barrier and its management of the delivery of the scheme. There urgently needs to be some form of independent peer review to support the decisions of councillors and EA employees who do not have suitable engineering qualifications and experience. No private company would do this.

The River Parrett catchment and its capacity affects much of South and Central Somerset; almost every town is on one of its tributaries. The wider opportunity that Somerset’s flood defence expenditure presents has to date been largely ignored and is in danger of being squandered. Sensible promises made in 2014 have been quietly allowed to disappear.

If you live within the Parrett Catchment or in West Somerset this article will be worth reading for economic reasons alone.

By 2024 nearly £100M will have been spent on flood related work within Somerset and the majority of the money focused to the north and north west of Bridgwater. The EA’s managed realignment at Steart Peninsula and the adjacent Bristol Ports property deal for it proposed container port that is of no economic benefit to Somerset sees nearly 3000 acres of farmland removed from the the local economy.

However

The Levels will still flood and as they did in 2014; they will simply drain more quickly.
A flood defence system will have been built that only works for sea water (tidal) and that will probably have to be replaced because it will not be viable to extend its design life because of the ground conditions along the river banks.
The expansion of Bridgwater over the next 100 years ignored.
The rather novel concept of putting a tidal flood barrier 5 miles upstream of the mouth of the River Parrett and into the town implemented.
An additional 2,000 acres of productive agricultural land will be in the process of being lost to agricultural bringing the total of land lost to the local economy to 5,000 acres including Steart Peninsular and the Bristol Ports land deal.
There will be no bridge over the Parrett although the myth that you cannot easily have both on one structure will have been discredited albeit too late.
No beneficial integration with a future Bridgwater bypass considered or provided.
An important relationships between the capacity of the KSD/Sowy expansion and the impact of the location of the BTB never mentioned or costed.
The planned loss of Pawlett Hams to the sea lying hidden in the Parrett Estuary Flood Risk Management Strategy.

Perhaps the most unfortunate decision to date was naming the barrier/barrage the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier and sending mixed messages as to its purpose. That single act has reduced interest and scrutiny both in Sedgemoor and further afield to almost nothing. Only 180 people came to a public consultation in September 2016.

The introduction on the SDC barrier website reproduced below implies on the last line that it “could play a critical role in reducing flood risk” (tidal) and not the fluvial flow it started talking abut; they are not the same thing but did meet once in 2014. Two different things have been conflated into one message.

The barrier is not designed to mitigate a another 2014 flood

with regard to fluvial (rainfall) flooding

Would it now have had an impact on another 2014 flood? NO
Could it be made to have an impact on another 2014 Flood YES.

Somerset’s councils seem to have no interest in this scheme yet they should because

Somerset County Council (SCC)

Despite having the SRA under its wing and councillors jointly at County and District level there is little in the way of a long term vision that can be see being developed.

A shorter more strategic tidal scheme closing off the South Somerset Levels from the sea by closing the short gap between the hills from Combwich to Pawlett Hill has not been considered.

Such a scheme would

Secure the south Somerset Levels from the sea.
Improve the fluvial capacity of the River Parrett to the benefit of Taunton Deane and South Somerset as well as Sedgemoor.
Provide a bypass and improved road link to West Somerset using EDF’s extended Cannington Bypass.

West Somerset

West Somerset’s economic development is constrained by two roads (A39 & A358) and the need to navigate across either Bridgwater (A39) and Taunton (A358) road systems to get to the M5. With little or no options and no Government money available as part of its road budget it is an area of Somerset where the wealth and opportunity of its population is always constrained and likely to continue. No doubt why it loses industry and income.

It is difficult to understand why West Somerset isn’t trying to improve its economic link to the M5 motorway and via the A39 to Frome, Wells, Shepton Mallet, Street, Glastonbury and Yeovil.

Constructing the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier at Combwich with a road bridge taking advantage of the recently constructed EDF extension to the Cannington Bypass would provide a significant economic benefit to West Somerset.

Taunton Deane & South Somerset

Both local authorities rely on their respective tributaries Rivers Isle, Cary and Tone to convey surface water to the River Parrett and onwards to the sea. No amount of SUDs, storage on the Levels or slow the flow is going to change the fact that you can only get so much fluvial flood water out through the River Parrett. That constraint will ultimately have to be faced by limiting economic development The opportunity has not been taken to leverage the long term benefits for the two districts by moving the barrier downstream.

The reason to relocate the selected Bridgwater Tidal Barrier site downstream is that its preferred location does almost nothing to improve the conveyance of surface water to the sea. Where it is now proposed above the King Sedgemoor Drain outfall means that the full benefit of the KSD/Sowy expansion cannot be achieved or the capacity of the River Parrett optimised. Capacity that would benefit largely Taunton Deane and South Somerset. That scheme is being paid for by everyone and is simply not as good value for money as it could be. Rising sea and tide levels will reduce the time the KSD sluices can discharge. That situation will invariably negatively impact both districts by limiting how much water can go in to the system at their end.

It is therefore surprising that neither council has been pushing the barrier downstream where it could be used to increase conveyance in the same way as the Thames Barrier does. Increasing the overall capacity of the system when the Levels again flood is the priority and an opportunity not to missed offers one less obstruction to those two districts economic development.

Sedgemoor District Council (SDC)

South Somerset Levels

Sedgemoor opted to support a 15Km long scheme that cannot be extended (raised) as sea levels rise. Somewhere a bigger one will be required. Its consultants never looked at what would be the best scheme for Somerset or indeed wider Bridgwater. It is just what would be the cheapest for the EA whilst the SRA and SDC looked on. A location for the barrier where a bridge cannot be added to it is hardly planning for the future but it does ensure the ratepayer does not get value for money.

North Somerset Levels

Defending the North Somerset Levels could be achieved by the construction a new barrier from the Polden Hills to end of the Mendips (Brean Down). Such an undertaking could be easily done providing undeveloped land is identified. We could create a second line of defence over the next 30 years letting Somerset contractors run recycling operations allowing trains to bring in recycled materials to form a continuous flood defence. Its time managed retreat was abandoned.

What is disappointing is that with the SDC Local Plan under development there is no land being reserved for future improvements to the flood defences. The organised surrender of Somerset’s hard won land is being orchestrated by the EA under its Managed Realignment process and no one is challenging it. Everyone in Somerset should be interested in what is being done along the coast for safety and economic reasons. There is simply no plan.

Heart of the South West LEP

The Heart of the West LEP with its support of the BTB a project will ultimately damage local businesses based in most districts (£16-20M of lost land values) whilst in a current study is looking at improving rural businesses . The LEP is an organisation facing both ways to the detriment of everyone.

Somerset needs some joined up thinking and understand the very negative implications of some of Somerset’s flood defence scheme.Only when its built and its limits apparent will people say “if only”.

The Options looked at by the EA lacked any sort of imagination or offered a long term solution; were simply variations on a theme and ignored the nearby topography that offered other options for the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier

It is unacceptable that better engineering options were not identified and presented to councillors; ultimately it should be the ratepayers decision to go for a better solution if they want to. The EA should not presume as it has in this case.

On the 14th July starting at 10.00 am the first opportunity to do something takes place when the SRA scrutiny committee meets in open session at Somerset County Hall, TA1 4DY.

Some Questions to Ask

Why is the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier not also designed to help to mitigate the effects of a similar flood to 2014?
What is the replacement plan for the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier?
What is the cost of a scheme with a bridge ?
Should we only be spending our money on such a limited scheme?
Why wasn’t Combwich and the resulting shorter flood defence system that protects a larger area than the current scheme considered by the EA?
Does the extension of the Cannington bypass towards Combwich necessitate the reassessment of the present scheme?
Should Somerset County Council be looking at a more holistic scheme for Somerset?
Should SCC commission a county wide economic assessment of what an alternative barrier scheme might deliver?
Do we need the EA or should the SRA be expanded to become a delivery focused organisation and the EA limited to a statutory consultee ?
Is the role of environmental charities in developing and influencing flood policy beneficial and do they have a conflict of interest?
Why after 3 years since the flood and 8 years since the barrier identified as the preferred solution is there almost no information about the scheme on the http://www.sedgemoor.gov.uk/bridgwaterbarrier website?

The EA plan another consultation on the full scheme later in 2017. Councillors of all Somerset’s districts might like to look at the economic impact of this scheme (BTB) on their own areas and perhaps county might look at the bigger picture.

An unintended consequence is only the failure to adequately consider a decision before it was made.

16/05/201713/06/2017

Somerset’s 20 Year Flood Action Plan is not a Plan

Has anyone noticed there actually isn’t really a plan for managing flooding in Somerset be it Tidal or Fluvial. Lots of headlines and pictures of grandstanding councillors on river banks but little substance. Our particular collective flood Emperor has no clothes whilst the myth that somehow the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier (BTB) is part of the solution to the avoiding a repeat of the 2014 flood is allowed to persist. People imagine that things are being done and there is a big picture somewhere. There isnt.

The Somerset 20 Year Flood Action Plan is little more than a maintenance list that should have been done and wasn’t; it is a complete misnomer. In three years since the 2014 flood there is no big plan looking forward the next 200 years. There is no context that explains where the value of all the money being spent is.

There is no excuse for such short sighted behaviour by our officials and elected representatives. At least the Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) carried out an economic impact assessment of the 2014 flood which is more than the EA and Sedgemoor District Council (SDC) have done for the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier.

The development of new ideas seems to be more akin to those seeking alternative medicinal remedies; they seem to be ones that will turn the Levels into some theme park rather than look at something that can be delivered over the decades and centuries ahead. The Managed Retreat (Realignment) of our coastline is not a panacea to rising sea levels; it has its place but needs to be challenged when there are viable options. Giving the EA the excuse and licence to do little or nothing is not acceptable. Those involved with W&WT and the RSPB as consistent beneficiaries of these EA policies and alongside Natural England makes an unholy alliance that is no friend of Somerset’s people.

Plenty of councillors are sat on committees and they should be ensuring rigorous debate and the publishing of useful information rather than the almost complete lack of detail in the public domain. The private sector would not be allowed to get away with this lack of transparency or vision.

Since 2014 when it was rushed together for political expediency little has been done or achieved whilst show case projects are not what they seem

Bridgwater Tidal Barrier

Despite knowing that the rise in sea level has no recognised end date Somerset has decided on a 100 year scheme. Our King Canute moment.

We are going to build a scheme that cannot be easily extended or modified knowing full well that something else will be needed in the future but we haven’t decided what. A scheme that unlike any conventional tidal surge barrier it is actually to be in the town rather than down stream and at the mouth of the river. Bridgwater in probably 10 rather than 100 years will have enveloped the proposed barrier site. A solution with built in obsolescence that can be bypassed on day one does not seem a great idea. Children born today may see the BTB torn down. Why would Bridgwater buy it?”

Options such as closing the gap between Stockland Bristol and Pawlett Hill less than 2 Km ( 1.3 miles) long compared to around 15 km (10 miles) both banks from Combwich to the selected site in Bridgwater or 7.5 Km if you allow Pawlett Hams to go the way of Steart Peninsula.

Two option studies paid for by the taxpayer and Combwich not even considered as an option in either and the backdoor flood route at Walpole still not acknowledged when the EA visits landowners. The credibility of the EA , its consultants and our oversight committees is very poor.

King Sedgemoor Drain Improvement

The King Sedgemoor Drain improvement is a Fluvial conveyance scheme that cannot reach its full potential because of the location of the tidal BTB upstream of Dunball Clyce. The EA in this matter described themselves in recent correspondence as the SRA’s sub contractor.

Silos

Flood schemes are kept in silos of fluvial and tidal rather than in developing a single holistic solution for Somerset. The EA and other organisations make it very difficult to see the full picture. There is a serious lack of transparency, accountability and independent review in the process.

By 2024 nearly £100m will have been spent and the Levels will still flood. The Bridgwater Tidal Barrier is seen and portrayed as a Bridgwater only scheme where as moving it downstream of the KSD outfall would increase conveyance under fluvial conditions benefiting the districts of Taunton Deane and South Somerset. The SRA is nowhere to be seen generating debate and bringing together people to achieve a wider benefit to Somerset with state and local ratepayers money which was its reason to be created. The SRA’s one big opportunity missed. This is notwithstanding the missed economic opportunity for West Somerset

Transparency

There is more information in the public domain about EDF’s Hinkley Point C power station then there is about these schemes especially the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier. It appears the EA did not want the Chilton Trinity and Pawlett Hams landowners to be aware of what would not be done to protect their land choosing to hide behind the rather opaque Parrett Estuary Flood Risk Management Strategy. Something noticeably low key to the point of invisibility in the EA’s 2016 consultations at the Bridgwater Art’s Centre.

The reasons that undertakings given by the EA and SDC in Protecting Bridgwater and the Somerset Levels & Moors from Tidal Flooding-Flood Risk Management Review -November 2014 were never followed through and just quietly dropped has never been explained.

No imagination and no vision for our children’s future

With a blank sheet of paper and little or no restrictions on what we might do to protect the South Somerset Levels including areas of Sedgemoor, Taunton Deane and South Somerset there is still a blank piece of paper. Rarely has such an opportunity been squandered.

There is nothing that explains what happens to the Tidal Surge Barrier when we cannot raise the banks any longer which in reality we cant now and Pawlett Hams and Chilton Trinity have become mudflats/ salt marsh and the cost of building downstream prohibitive.

What we do have is lots of committees

Wessex Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC)

Board of the Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA)

SRA Joint Scrutiny Panel

Somerset Drainage Board Consortium (IDB)

Its interesting to note how many people sit on more than one of these committees. These committees have people with no engineering knowledge or experience apart from the EA & IDB and all EA’s donkey work is done by US and Canadian third party consultants with no attachment to the area. The EA’s contribution to Somerset is questionable now as they have been reduced to little more than a middle man.

we must also not forget the groups

SRA Management Group
SRA Technical Group
Bristol Channel Strategic Coastal Group
South West Coastal Group
Southern Coastal Group

It really is time that Somerset had a suitable organisation capable of bringing a long term vision to secure the future of Somerset. Whilst attendance at committees is so lucrative nothing is going to get done . The EA is not a delivery based organisation and needs to be changed or replaced. The SRA has no structure or suitable people able to develop and execute the vision and solution we need. The system we have is clearly not fit for purpose.

The situation for Somerset, the rest of the West Country and no doubt other regions of the UK is that they need their own independent Engineers with local knowledge. Engineers able to provide continuity in advice to the committees and oversee the EA and IDB and other agencies.

We cannot afford

that each agency (EA, Highways, Rail) continues to builds its own thing, we need to combine flood defence with other infrastructure works.
that strategic flood decisions can be left to seconded senior local authority officers with little or no knowledge of the subject.
the lack of an independent peer review process.
The lack of transparency – there is nothing published on the BTB website that tells you why. There is little value value in an undated progress report that can be found there that does not measure progress.
all these organisations whose main purpose seems to be to invite people from other groups to attend their meetings at our expense.

WE NEED A PLAN and we need to end the Flooding Golden Goose.

on the 14th of July 2017 a meeting of the Scrutiny Committee will take place in Taunton . It is open to the public.

http://www.somersetriversauthority.org.uk/about-us/sra-scrutiny-meetings-and-papers/

03/05/201707/08/2018

Bridgwater Tidal Barrier a Fatal Flaw

The existing Bridgwater Tidal Barrier scheme has a flaw.

Water can go around it.

Any system including a flood defence system is only as good as its weakest link. The banks of the River Parrett is the Achilles heal of the EA’s scheme.

The ground along the river is simply too weak to support the continued raising of the river banks and from the EA’s point of view too expensive to maintain. The Parrett’s highest tides hidden behind the raised banks are already at the top of the doors of Bridgwater’s houses along the A38.

Even before it’s been built and the complete scheme revealed to the public the EA is working on adding secondary flood banks (dashed red lines) on the premise of a bank failure or a future decision not to maintain the existing flood defences. The drawing below is a scheme the EA has to fix the flaw. The red arrow is the open back door at Walpol where a breach to the north could circumvent all the defences. When the Dutch build a dyke they don’t build another one a few hundred metres behind it; clearly the EA expects a failure to occur or the river to over top.

The line in green is an option never considered by the EA but one that would offer much better protection than what is being proposed.

EA Secondary Flood Barrier, Downstream Bank Modifications and Alternative Barrier Route

This is information never presented to the public in any of the consultations in 2016.

To my knowledge Bridgwater will have the UK’s only tidal surge barrier not located at the mouth of the river it’s meant to control. At Bridgwater’s present rate of expansion the proposed barrier will in 100 years time not be just near the centre of Bridgwater but within the centre of its developed area. Only in Somerset would anyone come up with the plan we have and think its acceptable to have a scheme that has such an obvious flaw. Let’s also not forget that the EA’s other wider site downstream is being reserved for a road bridge to land that the EA is not protecting in the same way as existing housing. What happens when that is to be developed? Start again?

The ratepayer should have had real options presented rather than the EA’s version of the Henry Ford motto “any colour you like as long as its black”, ie anywhere in the river as long as its at the narrowest part of the river we can persuade people to accept.

The letter below confirms that the barrier can be circumvented.

EA Letter to Chilton Trinity landowner

20/04/201727/05/2017

Why things go wrong.

I am currently in Shetland overseeing the rebuilding of some badly built concrete and reporting on the causes. One of the primary reasons for the situation is the multiplicity of organisations in the delivery process where people in those organisations chose to assume the “other people” whoever they were had looked at it and checked it.

The result was that a completely avoidable problem occurred. The details of the incident do not matter what does matter is the lack of knowledge and responsibility in the delivery chain. People assumed and did not have the experience to put their hand up or were overruled on issues that were clearly obvious if people followed normal practice.

The UK is seeing increasing local control of significant long term infrastructure development passing into the hands of local councillors who have no access to independent advice. The low level of scrutiny and lack of third party review now being applied to tax payers expenditure is of great concern. LEP funding organisations seem equally poorly equipped accepting what the EA, Highways and other statutory bodies choose to tell them.

In 2016 I provided written evidence to the House of Commons
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Second Report of Session 2016–17. The concern being that important infrastructure projects being locally run did not have adequate over sight. Once local authorities had the District Engineer whilst central Government oversight is at such a high level and based in London that it is largely irrelevant to the population. We have no competent independent oversight on the many state funded projects taking place regionally.

Recent correspondence with The Somerset Rivers Authority indicates that organisation has all the indicators of an organisation with inadequate resources and a scrutiny committees that appears to have no terms of reference and no access to third party advice. No large commercial organisation would operate in this fashion. It is noteworthy that the EA in response to recent questions describe themselves as a subcontractor to the SRA.

There is little doubt that there is some huge embarrassing and expensive mistake on the way. It is time the regions had independent Engineers who can advise our councillors and has the power to bring statutory organisations to the table. Someone who lives in the region who can drive solutions to the tax payers benefit rather than the continuing creation of separate infrastructure rather than integrated solutions.

As usual we have too many people in positions of influence who don’t know what they are talking about and consultants more concerned with fee income than doing the right thing. Bridges on Tidal Barriers for instance.

If the regions want independence they will need the tools to do the work. Our infrastructure delivery needs to better managed and supervised.