March 2024
TALLINGTON FLOODING UPDATE as at Friday15th March 2024
Sunday 18th February saw Mill Lane flooded again with water coming up through the ground, sewer and surface water drains similar to events of early morning Thursday 4th January. This after only moderate to heavy rainfall. Also rising water in front of the Old Post Office, at the Manor House courtyard and at the end of Searson close. An increasing number of properties were left without toilets, backing up throughout the day and no help from Anglian Water who continued saying that they would not tanker away storm water and could do nothing! Calls for assistance resulted in the LCC highways emergency team sending a tanker late afternoon and with the help of a highways team commenced taking the rising water from Mill Lane. That proved futile so it moved to the Old Post Office chamber and then to road outside Manor house from where it stayed till late after making numerous trips from village. The flooding experienced at the Manor house and on Searson close from the rising water from Sunday 18th February kept the Parish Council 2” pump busy on and off from then till 9.30pm Sunday 25th February pumping water to the waste land next to the East Coast line. An additional 3 pumps brought in by residents to tackle the rising water coming up through the drains primarily at the Manor House, Searson close and on Mill Lane as water continued to rise from the foul and surface water drains throughout the week. On the afternoon of Thursday 22nd February from 1pm and throughout Friday Greystones and Tennyson Cottage saw water coming up through the floors and flooding yet again!
A call on Thursday 22nd February morning to the Environment Agency FIDO team brought the trailer pump back to river bank and it commenced pumping early afternoon for approx 3 hours. The river and dyke not being the threat this time it was turned off but it stays in situ just in case. The dyke being monitored by our Flood response team.
On Thursday LCC provided 2 gully tankers from Sleaford, working from 6pm and operating for 8 hours till 2 am and again throughout Friday sucking water from the surface drains and then depositing into the river at various locations.
The National grid work on Main Road commenced on Wednesday 21st against the Parish Councils advice but work was halted within minutes as water filled the trenches. However, it took a further two days to refill the trenches with tarmac causing traffic mayhem throughout Thursday and Friday. They will not be back till the summer they say.
The LCC flooding and water management scrutiny committee met on Monday 19th February in Lincoln, the recent flooding throughout the County being the main topic. Our county councillor Ashley Baxter being a member of this committee and having visited the village on the Sunday before to see for himself first-hand the problems was able to raise the issues with the representatives of Anglian Water, LCC and the Environment Agency. Some of their responses showing a complete lack of awareness to the seriousness of the flooding.
Anglian Water’s Matt Moore, Flood Partnerships Manager Quality and Environment together with Area Manager Katie Glynn and Richard Fenwick, LCC Head of Highways Asset and local management services eventually visited Tallington on Friday 23rd February. We were joined by Tom Amblin-Lightowler, SKDC Environmental Health. They could clearly see the flooding in Mill Lane and at the Manor House for themselves. To focus our discussions, the Parish Council presented them with a copy of the Anglian Water presentation given to the parish council in July 2018! This set out the results of the surveys of earlier that year. It highlights the problems with the surface water drains in Tallington mapping them out along with the sewer drains. It also provided the various options for solving the problems including a relined surface water sewer from the junction of Main Road and Bainton Road through to just before the crossing. However, it was almost 4 years before they could agree to jointly fund any repair works. As previously reported in March 2022 a promised £150k project was halved at the last minute, stopping short of clearing the blockages now confirmed in the village from the Old Post Office to the Walnuts and under the rail crossing. As a reminder Anglian Water advised us in May 2022 that they needed a budget of £400-£500K to carry out a full repair saying “Overall, we and LCC were pleased with the amount of debris we were able to remove and appreciating it’s not a 100% fix, this is still good news for residents. Alongside the other work in the community, this will mitigate the risk of flooding in Tallington.” it didn’t and it’s got worse since to the stage that we are now at with the rising water being unable to escape as it should via the surface water drains through the village and under the crossing.
LCC agreed emergency funding to provide a large 8” pump to drain down Mill Lane in an attempt to lower the water table and take the pressure of the foul drain system. This pump arrived late on Friday 23rd February and has been in operation ever since pumping surface water via 800m of pipe across Michael Thurlby’s field to the Mill stream and eventually into the river. This pump, we have been promised will stay until a solution is found and the risk gone. Meanwhile a 4” pump hired by Michael T to clear Mill Lane was used to feed into into Mill Lane from the Old post office chamber on Main Road for 4 days.
Tuesday 27th February saw the start of a week of activity by Anglian Water engineers. Following a detailed appraisal of the drains from Mill Lane towards the crossing it was clearly established that there was at least one blockage somewhere between the chamber opposite the Manor House to the Chamber in front of the Whistlestop pub. It was also clear that the underground culvert from the Whistlestop chamber to the open ditches to the east of the crossing were 70% blocked with silt and rubbish. AW spent 3 days/nights clearing with specialist tankers.
Surface Water Drain - 2 Feb 24
Early pictures of surface water drain from the double chamber village side of crossing back toward manhole opposite Manor House, that AW pumped out shows a dry-stone wall chamber on sand and gravel with very old flagstones over! Even older than we thought.
Meanwhile our MP Gareth Davies wrote to the CEOs of Network Rail and Anglian Water to make his and our concerns known of a suspected collapse under the East Coast Rail line. The planned closure of the crossing overnight Saturday 2nd /Sunday 3rd March to allow Network Rail’s contractors CML to carry out a scheduled 5-year culvert clean (a year late since 2018 last done) confirmed that there was indeed a surface water sewer collapse under the crossing. NR cameras are meanwhile monitoring the track and culvert.
An additional large pump has been installed by AW in front of the Old Post Office to pump water from a deep surface water chamber there to the Mill Lane 8” pump. This has now revealed another collapse in a second chamber that was totally silted up. Anglian Water anticipate that this extra pump will help reduce the high-water table throughout the village and provide some reduction of water flow during their planned works with Network rail during the night on 16th March when they will attempt to repair the collapse drain under the rail crossing or at the very least identify what further work is required. These pumps will offer ongoing protection until a long-term fix is provided.
Drain Collapse Discovery - 11 Mar 24
Mill Lane has been shown historically as one of 4 or more high risk flooding points from surface water on the EA maps and identified as such in the July 2018 AW presentation. The 2 recent flooding events of 3rd January and 22nd February have only confirmed it to be so.
We are pushing for a complete fix this time to include the blockages that were not cleared during the March 2022 works due to a perceived lack of funding, (circa £400 to £500k).
Mill Lane - 23 Feb 24
This failure of an AW asset has meant that AW have at last to provide tankers at the pumping at Searson Close. These are continuing at date of this update.
The Parish Council pump was in use on 20th February pumping from 9am to 4pm to reduce the level of the water in the dyke alongside the river. Primarily to allow the Environment Agency team to replace the sandbags to block up the river flap again as they did early December last year. Discovery of fish (Minnows) in the dyke on the 10th February clearly indicated to the flood response team that the river flap had most likely failed again despite initially appearing to hold when debagged on 9th January (after the flooding of 3rd and 4th January). The pumping again resulted in handfuls of minnows being sucked up into the strainer when the water level in dyke dropped. Approx. 45 sandbags have be located to create a double skin barrier on the village side and this appears to be reducing substantially any back flow from the river. We have agreed with the EA Ops Manager Field Teams that this is only a temporary measure. It is suggested that a bung or better still a gate that can be closed when required is fitted. The Parish Council will pursue this with the EA team.
Thank you to Gary, Bredon’s manager of the West Deeping quarry for donating to the village 2 deliveries of 8 tons of gravel that have been distributed along the unadopted road down to the Crooked Billet and Hawthorne cottage next to the church wall. This road was badly affected during the flooding leaving it a muddy mess.
Church Lane after the gravel donated by Breedons - 11 Mar 24
The new 4” water pump (1600 + Litres) per minute has arrived, fitted to a heavy-duty trolley and will be located close to the river at one of the Flood response teams’ homes to allow it to be deployed quickly to pump water from the dyke back into the river should the need arise and the EA pump is not in situ. Thanks again to the Heron’s trust for making this possible.
The Flood response Team is working well and together with the Parish Council we have agreed that the Flood warden team be made up of Cllr John Smith, John Atter and Rob Burdock although all members of the response team are and will act as flood watchers. Cllr Smith has been the main point of contact with the Environment Agency for some years now through Nick Riches. The Parish Council also now has better contacts with the EA through Ben Thornely, the Area Flood and Coastal Risk Manager covering the Welland and Nene catchments and Henry Hammond, the Operations Manager who manages the field teams. Both have been accessible even when off duty of late.
It cannot be stressed enough the benefit we have had from the Flood response team working together to share the load as a team. Flood Wardens can help local communities to understand their flood risk and that all residents have a responsibility to look after themselves, their family and property before, during and after a flood. Flood Wardens can help a community to be prepared for flooding and can bring the community together during difficult times. Flood Wardens are the eyes and ears of the community and often called flood watchers. Whether they are out walking their dog or just walking to the garage they can keep an eye out for blocked drains and culverts, tree branches in rivers, and anything else that may cause a flood risk and report it to the Environment Agency, land or property owners.
Any residents disappointed with the way Anglian Water have failed to respond to their calls for assistance over past weeks might wish to complain to OFWAT.
Contact details are https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/contact-us/water-company-enquiries/
SKDC officers are following up on the Casewick lane drain and dyke issues that go to a blocked culvert under the east coast mainline and overgrown and dykes full of polystyrene and containers on the cement works site. This is restricting the fields to the North of the village draining as they should.
The temporary repairs by the Environment Agency to the erosion damage on the river banks where the river turns near the East Coast rail bridge downstream of Tallington bridge and past the old quarry Bailey bridge were completed a week earlier than anticipated. Further permanent works will be undertaken in the summer.
It will be interesting to see what the LCC section 19 investigation report concludes over what role the blockage and the poor state of the surface water drains throughout the village had on the two flooding incidents? To my mind it was pivotal. Notwithstanding the failures of the EA preceding the 3rd January.
There was a meeting with SKDC’s CEO Karen Bradford and Phil Swinton on the 7th March to review SKDC’s response to the flooding and how they can continue to support us going forward. We were also able to explain the issues and show them where the problems are in Tallington including the Casewick Lane drainage. Throughout the past 10 weeks SKDC officers have offered support to Tallington and we are grateful for their ongoing assistance. A review will be undertaken involving Greatford to update village resilience and emergency plans for the two villages. Drone surveillance mapping will be undertaken over the next month by LCC and SKDC.
Stay safe.
Philip. Tallington Parish Council. 15th March 2024