MUCH Wenlock’s geography has meant the historic rural town has suffered from flooding since records began – and recent development, coupled with inadequate drainage, has made its problems worse.
Following the most recent devastation in June 2007 an action group was set up to look in detail at problems facing the town and the best ways to deal with them.
The exceptional rainfall on Monday June 25 that year resulted in flooding in at least 64 properties in Much Wenlock and Farley, with extensive damage caused to gardens, and a similar number of properties were also threatened by the floods.
The Wenlock Flooding Forum was formed in response, and since then the group has been fighting to get the correct drainage system in place, supply flood defences to properties at risk, identify key drainage points and introduce a maintenance procedure.
Local resident John Yeats, a former district and town councillor, decided to take up the cause and produced a report on the floods in Much Wenlock and Farley, which lead to some pretty incredible findings.
“Much Wenlock is a Boscastle type catchment area on high grounds,” he said. “When the rain really falls during the summer we get more rain on the Wenlock Edge than we do on the Shropshire Plains. It’s been exacerbated by housing developments, more roads and more houses with harder surfaces.
“The quarry used to take the fall and bad weather normally goes into the ground, but two months worth of bad weather means the rain will run off the ground and cause flash floods.”
Mr Yeats said the main problem facing the town was the continued development of properties on flood plains, which were given inadequate drainage systems.
“A lot of water runs off into the streams and runs down over the drains, which cannot cope with the amount of water. The roads then become canals.”
Mr Yeats said he and fellow residents had been checking the rainfall since the flash floods of 2007, while others had been recording it for several years.
The results show more rain is falling in the catchment area now than ever before – and that is before potential future climate change has been brought into consideration.
“The simple fact is the new properties have not got enough, or sufficient enough, drainage systems. Unless they put drainage in to hold back the water from places like Farley it’s going to get worse and worse,” said Mr Yeats.
MP Philip Dunne has since become chairman of the Wenlock Flooding Forum and further studies are being conducted all the time. This is needed to give the group a strong platform to put their case across – to Shropshire Council, the Enviroment Agency and Severn Trent – that more work desperately needs to be done.
One such study is a LIDAR, which will be used to make a computer model of Much Wenlock aerially. LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology uses optical remote sensors that measure areas of scattered light to find range.
The model can then be used to monitor every square metre of area to see how the water runs and which areas are worse affected.
“It will help us to look at where the best places would be for the drains to go and what ground can be sacrificed,” said Mr Yeats.“The Shilti Brook and Farley Brook are the only ways of getting the water into the River Severn. People who live down the bottom are most at risk.
“Water can run down the roads six inches off the ground, which is a force for someone quite strong to deal with, but if you have more elderly people they’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”
The water course flow under Much Wenlock was renovated in 2004 at a cost of over £1.5million, but the flooding forum believes the capacity of the system is inadequate to cope with intense rainfall and the drains, river and culvert need increased capacity.
“Water appears to reach the river more quickly now because of changed farming practices and new housing in the town, which increase peak flow and intensifies the risk of floods,” said Mr Yeats. “Drains and ditches are inadequately maintained increasing the risk of surface flow.
“There appears to be a lack of co-ordination between authorities responsible for drainage and sewerage – Shropshire Council, the Environment Agency and Severn Trent.
“New properties should only be built if their impact on the system is carefully considered and adequate safeguards are carried out.”
The forum has concluded the Farley Brook cannot carry existing flows at peak times and has become a greater risk. It also found Bourton Bank had been “exacerbated by a utility company breaking the cast-iron pipe and replacing it with a smaller section of plastic pipe”.
“An extensive survey of the whole drainage system through the town and down to the River Severn will be carried out outlining what is required and what is available now to prevent future flooding,” said Mr Yeats.
“Any major developments upstream should be fully discussed and a formal agreement made for work needed downstream before planning is considered.”
So it seems the fight to get adequate flood defences for Much Wenlock is going to be a long and hard battle, but it’s one that has already begun and one that is being carefully plotted by a group of professionals who are gradually putting together irrefutable evidence to back up their case.