Is it the end for flooding misery? (From This Is Wiltshire)

Is it the end for flooding misery?

11:50pm Sunday 29th November 2009 in

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AS Thames Water’s flood alleviation work nears completion in Haydon Wick, residents are waiting for the deluge which will tell them whether the flood misery of the last two years is over.

Flood victim Linda Brown, who lives on the High Street, was unable to return to her property for a year after the floods of July 2007.

She said she has mixed feelings every time the heavens open. “On the one hand you say not again, but on the other you are thinking will it work?”

Linda, 47, and partner Steve Pike, 46, never imagined they would need to be experts on flooding, but when they speak about sewers, drainage and even pipe width, it is as if it has become second nature. This is the result of their house being flooded six times in three years.

Steve said: “It affects the way you live your life.”

Linda added: “We feel for the people in Cumbria, but for some of them it’s just a one off. For us this has been going on for three years.”

The couple have learnt their lessons. Nowadays everything of value is kept high up in cupboards or upstairs.

Though insurance paid for the restoration work to the property, Steve and Linda have paid to raise the floor of one side of their cottage by eight inches.

However, the other side remains at risk of flooding.

The flood alarm system attached to an outdoor sewer near the house is still in place and which goes off every time the water reaches a certain level.

This gives Linda and Steve one and a half hours to prepare themselves and get all their prized possessions to higher ground.

As you walk in the door of their cottage, there is evidence of how the family has never been able to settle, living in an almost limbo existence.

The most recent flood was February this year.

The couple moved into the property in June 2006 having checked with the land registry and the Environment Agency that the land was not on a flood plain.

They had planned to renovate the cottage, but their first experience of flooding came only a month later.

But this was nothing compared to the most major floods in July 2007, which saw the house 14 inches deep in water.

“We were working in Oxford at the time,” said Linda.

“Luckily our lodger was here and he rang us up at 10.45am to say the water had started pouring down the drive.

“Forty-five minutes later he said ‘that’s it, I’ve lost it’ – we had an inch of water inside.”

It took Linda and Steve over three hours to get home to assess the damage for themselves.

Water had seeped up through the gap between the floor and the walls and with such an old cottage there was little protection.

Steve said: “It’s heartbreaking watching everything you have worked for in danger of being wiped out.”

Linda said: “We have rescued our stuff once but to see it under threat again. We have already lost a lot of our treasured possessions. We bought this house to fix it up.

“The last thing we thought we would need to do would be to incorporate flood defences.”

Haydon Wick is at risk of flooding when the water table is high and then there is further rainfall.

Steve said because there was a dry summer the water table has been low, but recent rainfall has raised the level back up.

Thames Water has spent £10.3m on flood defences in Haydon Wick, work which is due to be completed by March next year.

This includes a re-design of the sewer network and installation of new sewers, which has meant parts of Thames Avenue, Blunsdon Road and the High Street being closed for three months each.

Thames Water says the flood alleviation scheme will protect 75 homes by the time the work is completed in March next year and should improve drainage for hundreds more properties in the area.

The work comes after countless meetings and a concerted effort by the Haydon Wick Flood Group to get Thames Water to sort out the drainage in the area after flooding damaged a number of homes on nine occasions from July 2006 to December 2008.

Residents in the area directly affected by the work say they are pleased the major part of the plan is finally under way after fighting for something to be done for years.

Linda and Steve said they were pleased with the work that is being done, which includes separating the sewage system for Haydon Wick so it goes back to the main trunk pipes near Asda Walmart, rather than going around Abbey Meads first.

The storm drains are already in place. “We’re waiting for the test,” said Steve.

The flood alleviation work has meant almost constant building work. “It’s like living on one of those housing estates where it’s still half built and we have got to negotiate builders’ traffic,” added Steve.

Linda pointed out how some residents had complained about the disruption.

“I just think that every single one of those complaints comes from somebody who has never been flooded,” she said.

“Hopefully there will be a benefit to it at the end and the benefit to the whole community.”