Following the floods of 2007 which caused misery to Stroud residents including those of Slad Brook, Green County Councillor Sarah Lunnon and Stroud District Councillor Simon Pickering have been pursuing innovative ways to minimise future flood risk.
Rural SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage Schemes) are a low-cost method of managing flood water at source, upstream of urban areas. Such schemes involve simple measures such as felling trees over streams at strategic places, creating “leaky dams”. This helps to ensure that when heavy rains fall, the water is slowed on its journey downhill, pooling harmlessly in upstream areas instead of pouring quickly down into urban areas where it can cause havoc and devastation.
The topic of flood mitigation is at the top of the news at the moment, as record rains bring the chaos and heartache of flooding to people across the country. But as chair of the Slad Brook Action Group, Sarah has been working tirelessly for many years with residents, land owners, government agencies and others to reduce the chance of Stroud residents being inundated.
Similar measures put in place in Pickering, N. Yorks, have recently been credited with averting flooding in that town when nearby areas were affected.
Getting the right measures in place in the Stroud area has involved gaining cross-party support and collaboration between the Environment Agency, The Severn and Wye Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC), Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) and Stroud District Council (SDC). Simon Pickering, the Green Party chair of SDC environment committee, has been a champion of SUDS for many years; and has been able to ensure that SDC provided office and administrative support for a project officer (Chris Utley) when funding was obtained for a 3 year pilot project.
Having started as a Green initiative, these measures are now supported by all political parties in the district. But they are not an absolute protection against all flooding. As climate change brings warmer and wetter weather, we will need to work more with our environment to ensure our homes are protected.
To learn more, you can watch a film about the SUDS initiative on the SDC web site, or read Sarah’s report.