Bit of a raw subject for some I understand. But after hearing on the news that there’s loads the environment agency etc. could have done over York way, i wonder how it could be prevented in Calderdale, i understand the principle of flood plains but surely there just isn’t the space along the valley? I suppose the river could be deeper but what else?

Lots could be done… But everything has consequences. If you keep the water in the river up top then more goes down, getting one place flood free could spell disaster for the next town down. It will be a very emotive issue and probably it needs to be a very open and transparent process on what happens next. Also what is the 1 in 100 year flood you are protecting against how big, what was the worst just seems to be bettered every few years.

Making homes flood recoverable is one sensible option, power down from the ceiling rather than the floor, different flooring etc.

No Torry donors with grouse moors upstream ?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/29/deluge-farmers-flood-grouse-moor-drain-land

This flood was not only foretold – it was publicly subsidised

Its all academic really.

Did it strike you at any point over the last few weeks that there’s any serious will within government or the environment agency to seriously address the issue? To dedicate the resources required, and change things on the ground? Or do you think that we’re going to just get more of the quietly cutting funds to flood defences, and carrying on with the ‘fingers crossed and hope for the best’ approach?

Cheapest way would be to keep it on the uplands for longer. Be that through newly wooded areas acting as a sponge and absorbing the run-off and allowing it back into the water table slowly to local flow restrictions on the backs and streams on the moorland. (Pickering has had success with this). Getting the landowners to play ball though will be the tough part.
Oh and stop building on flood plains, see the land name that’s a clue that is.

I agree with Mike, Preventing Floods in one area increases the risk to others in other areas, i think that is evident in the floods we saw in December.

I agree with Mike, Preventing Floods in one area increases the risk to others in other areas, i think that is evident in the floods we saw in December.

You clearly haven’t read Kimber’s link then.

If there’s enough rain then anything will flood, after the floods in Carlisle a few years ago the EA worked out what were likely flood levels based on historical records then added half a metre to the height of the barriers. The floods in December were another half metre higher again.

Usually it isn’t the water itself that causes the initial problem but debris such as trees that get stuck under bridges causing the water to back up and overflow the banks.

There’s not much room in the Calder Valley for upstream defences, things like dry bunds that delay and limit the flow of excess water downstream so you have to look at resiliant infrastructure: top-down electricals as mentioned; ground floors only being used for utility space and so on. Deepening and/or widening river channels just moves the problem downstream where it’s actually likely to be worse as more streams and rivers will have joined. The authorities wer able to do this at Lynmouth after the disaster there in the 1950s as it was on the coast so nothing downstream. In fact Lynmouth and the more recent Boscastle are better topographical comparisons for the Calder Valley than say York or Carlisle.

There have been lots of articles written & posted over the last couple of days espousing wildly differing views. It’s sadly enviable I think that this will mostly become a sterile political football, to score points rather than directing much needed energy to the actual problem.
Certainly there needs to be a properly organised “debrief” over the whole event. What worked, what didn’t. The Govt. has some questions to answer regarding it’s spending on defences, and large landowners need to be questioned regarding their practices up on the moors above us, but equally there has to be the realisation from some folk about the nature of the resilience of their homes and business. Lastly we live in steep sided valleys at the bottom of which used to be a marsh, The water now has a easy route to the valley floor, and once there now has a equally fast route the now along very managed roads rivers and canals, and we’ve had 175-200% of our monthly rainfall for November and December with over 25 days of measurable rain each month, and January looks to be continuing that trend. We’ve had a lot of rain, and we’re currently making it easy to flood

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-flooding-how-a-yorkshire-flood-blackspot-worked-with-nature-to-stay-dry-a6794286.html

Did it strike you at any point over the last few weeks that there’s any serious will within government or the environment agency to seriously address the issue?

It occurred to me (to the massively cynical side of my brain, presumably far over on the left), after riding through Calderdale and seeing people dumping everything they own out on the street, to be replaced (hopefully sooner than later) by new stuff, that flooding might actually be seen as good for the economy and so have a certain appeal to the likes of Cameron and Osborne. Too much conspiracy theory?

Reminded me of Rich Hall’s quip that under capitalism the hero is the man dying of cancer and going through a messy divorce.

Be that through newly wooded areas acting as a sponge and absorbing the run-off and allowing it back into the water table slowly to local flow

Looking at photos of the valley sides in the 60-70’s and now, the thing that strikes one almost straight away is the amount of trees there are in the modern photos. I don’t think the valleys were as badly flooded in those previous decades, were they?

I don’t want to get tied up in a thread about this at the minute TBH, the houses and shops need cleaning out, and I’ve got some clearance to do of my own. There’s much to look forward to (not least my new carpets are coming today!) such as some cafe’s re-opening, brants trousers, and more washing to do for blazing saddles. Please keep this pleasant.

^^^ This, there are more trees, and less sheep in the uplands than at any time in the last 100 years. However, there are vastly more people in the country (especially in flood prone areas) with hugely increased expectations of flood protection. The amount of rainfall we have had is also unprecedented. Remember this was the wettest December EVER recorded for most of the UK.

Remember that although a sponge does hold more than a slate, once it is saturated it won’t hold a single a cc more than that same slate.

As above the words it’s never flooded here, I’ve never seen it so bad so high etc.

Did you hear the interview on Radio 4 a few weeks back where they had a flood expert and the head of the NFU. The flood expect was saying all the things like planting more trees in the uplands and slowing rivers down with small dams and basically all the things that seem to make sense. Main idea is to stop water rushing downstream to the pinch points and then flooding. The head of the NFU was the most pig headed and stuck in the mud person I have ever heard. He totally ignored all the questions and said that none of it could be done as it might remove some grazing land. His argument was that one of the reason that people go to places like the Lake District was to see all the sheep on the mountains and hills. He might as well have stuck his fingers in his ears and shouted NO NO NO. Complete idiot and god knows how he got his position.

Too much conspiracy theory?

Maybe from a homeowners point of view it’ll help the economy. But from a business point of view its an absolute disaster. I know of two small businesses personally who are just calling it a day. They know they’ll never get insurance again so they’re walking away. They’ve lost their livelihoods.

I’m presently doing a lot of work for a large company who’ve been decimated. 3 warehouses completely flooded. All their stock is manufactured in the China. Its pretty much all destroyed. The lead times to get it replaced and shipped is 5 – 6 months. They’ve got trade shows coming up, but no stock. So what are they going to do? Will they still be an ongoing concern in 6 months? This is a business built up over 30 years, and employing a lot of people!

Its worth noting that this area has never ever previously flooded. They’re insured. Will they be insurable next year?

This is the reality on the ground! This is going to knock on economically for a long time. Just look at the flooding in Leeds and York. These are major economies. How many companies are going to be in this position. This is just the beginning. Again – does it strike you that anyone in government actually cares? That they realise how serious this is to still fragile northern economy?

Maybe if you say ‘Northern Powerhouse’ enough times, someone might believe it. Their response to the flooding up here shows what shallow vacuous sloganeering, utterly devoid of any substance that this is

Did it strike you at any point over the last few weeks that there’s any serious will within government or the environment agency to seriously address the issue?

Certainly there needs to be a properly organised “debrief” over the whole event. What worked, what didn’t. The Govt. has some questions to answer regarding it’s spending on defences

After every large event an independent investigation will be held. I’ve contributed to them in the past and I can assure you that no stones are left unturned and no-one is beyond criticism. The HR Wallingford (leading independent company) investigation into the 13/14 operation of the Leigh Flood Storage Area can be found here:

PDF Link

There are always lessons to be learnt and you can be reassured that all of the questions you wish to be asked will be. In addition, as a member of the public, when the investigation is launched you will be able to contribute to the process and ensure your views are represented. All findings will be further audited independently.

I can’t speak for everyone within the Environment Agency but I could not disagree with the first statement more.

Brant, I did actually read it, I looked upon it as a point scoring one upmanship excercise where by the Local Activist group fore saw these floods because the not so local Billionaire land owner charges thousands for toffs to come and shoot his grouse.

There is no doubt that poor land management above the town has helped water escape off the moors at a greater rate, Baring in mind that a Months worth of rain fell in 24 Hours and the fact that 16″ inches of rain fell in the previous 2 Months Oct / Nov then the land was already at saturation point, that water has to go somewhere and through history these places have always flooded. It’s better though that we blame those with wealth as its all their fault.

I was actually lead to believe that the flood defense for the Foss failed on the Confluence of the river Ouse which contributed to the swell.

The point about the dry bunds/retention systems is that they only come in to effect when the water levels get high enough so the land is only flooded rarely. So long as the locations chosen don’t have bits of land that would get isolated as the waters rise then stock isn’t going to be at risk (sheep and cattle are reasonable swimmers anyway – the farmers on Mull used to swim their cattle to Oban for example). A flood payment scheme payable for each flood event would be cheap.

There’s a PDF on the Environment Agency site that goes through this and many other options for flood defence/protection.

Well it’s a complex can of worms you’ve opened.

In essence, you can’t engineer your way out of all flooding. Deeper rivers and higher walls would be a very short-sighted and ineffective solutions. The discussion around dredging a couple of years ago was a case in point. Dredging creates a small increase in river capacity in a very small area (at risk of pushing flooding downstream), whilst the agricultural practice that creates all the washed off sediment continues unchanged and the land continues to have a reduced holding capacity. As mentioned above (Monbiot’s arguments are good on this), river catchments need to be more effective at holding and slowing water, and this needs to be achieved with better land management on a very large scale. However, this requires a combination of huge changes in agricultural practice and for environmental legislation to actually have teeth. But, as the majority of the land owning class is Tory, this isn’t likely to change any time soon. Combine this with the government’s poor grasp of environmental issues and their even poorer desire to implement change, and it’s a recipe for these kind of events. The amount of money they recently pledged is a complete joke, billions need to be invested for the long term, and a major shift in attitudes needs to occur.

Also, I have to put in a word for the EA, who every time this happens come in for a huge amount of unwarranted stick. The EA would desperately like to do more but they are at the complete mercy of government cuts and budget constraints. Their flood prevention spending is very strictly regulated by pre-set controls on cost-benefit. So even where they have money to spend, it has to be used in areas were most people and property are at risk, which means smaller rural areas like Cumbria sadly suffer. Also, they have faced significant budget and staff cuts across the board, and have had to deal with major flooding events on top of dealing with day to day work. The media hasn’t yet picked up on the fact that upcoming EA budget contraints will mean they will not have enough to cover maintenance of all their flood assets. Never mind building higher walls, they won’t even have enough to look after what they have. This could all be changed from within government, and many in the EA are at their wits end with the position they find themselves in.

EDIT – FWIW I don’t work for the EA but I know a few people who do, and I also work in the water industry.

FYI sheep are very poor swimmers.

Cattle yes, but sheep have a woolly jumper that will absorb 10s of kilos of water and cause it to tire extremely quickly. One farmer lost about 100 sheep in the Lakes flooding while another had 41 cattle found alive and well downstream. 1 over 20 miles away!!

There is no doubt that poor land management above the town has helped water escape off the moors at a greater rate, Baring in mind that a Months worth of rain fell in 24 Hours and the fact that 16″ inches of rain fell in the previous 2 Months Oct / Nov then the land was already at saturation point, that water has to go somewhere and through history these places have always flooded. It’s better though that we blame those with wealth as its all their fault.

Having actually been in town at peak flood height, and seen the effect that even a temporary gap in the rain made to river levels, it really isn’t a big leap to suggest that controlling land absorption and run off is key to this.

By the time the water is in the rivers in the valley bottom, either you’re screwed, or the folk down the road with the shorter walls are screwed.

http://www.gaugemap.co.uk/#!Map/Summary/1972/2090/2015-12-26/2015-12-27

cutting funds to flood defences, and carrying on with the ‘fingers crossed and hope for the best’ approach?

Surely, it’s “we just don’t give a damn about the poor” rather than fingers crossed.

Reasonable point regarding sheep fleece though I have had to rescue sheep (Swaledales & Dalesbred) that had become stranded on an island in a reservoir near the farm and they were able to swim to shore (about 100m). It could have been summer so they wouldn’t have full winter fleeces.

A bit of a side issue though, the point I was making is that dry bunds don’t necessarily preclude normal use of the land that would be inundated.

I think it is a wider debate that flood defences.

For me this also borders how we value land, green spaces, wild space and what the purpose of it all is. It is not just a simple ‘flood defences’ issue.

I wonder if an underlying issue is that so many ‘flood defence schemes’ are picked up by big companies – whereas lots of the answers seem to lie in smaller, local schemes, delivered by farmers, landowners and small businesses, but led by government and the economics as well as social issues. We reward for food production, perhaps we need to revisit the whole EU food production/UK grant schemes to farmers, and it should be on a balanced and pragmatic approach…

It’s worth noting that it’s not just the ability of the upland catchment to absorb water, but the rate at which it then flows downstream, even when saturated. A more complex upstream environment with more trees/wetland/biomass along with small dams/obstacles (i.e. forest streams not ‘cleaned’ of branches etc.), will mean that water will take much longer to get downstream even when saturated, and give the river a chance to cope better with all the input. It would also raise the level at which the ground does become saturated, and make the catchment area more resilient to extreme rainfall events. This could quite easily make the difference between a high river and a catastrophically high one. It would also give current defences a better chance of coping.

He totally ignored all the questions and said that none of it could be done as it might remove some grazing land.

Remember Farmers get EU subsidy’s on farmable land not hedgerows, trees, etc.

as part of my small involvment with an mtb advocacy group, i attend a few land-management meetings. Try suggesting that we could let a few trees grow on the moors and people get very angry, very quickly.

(i’m not even talking about proactive, large-scale planting here, just letting the self-seeded saplings grow)

Farmers also get subsidies for environmental reasons: my brother gets a grant not to clear gorse from part of his farm because it supports a flower which in turn is needed by a rare (for Cumbria) butterfly.

There is no doubt that poor land management above the town has helped water escape off the moors at a greater rate, Baring in mind that a Months worth of rain fell in 24 Hours and the fact that 16″ inches of rain fell in the previous 2 Months Oct / Nov then the land was already at saturation point, that water has to go somewhere and through history these places have always flooded. It’s better though that we blame those with wealth as its all their fault.

I was actually lead to believe that the flood defense for the Foss failed on the Confluence of the river Ouse which contributed to the swell.

It may be just how I’m reading this but you seem to be linking the Calderdale floods with the failure of the Foss Barrier.

Yep there are a lot of schemes for land management. There is also a lack of understanding about what’s going on with farming and land use.

In many ways this sort of stuff long terms requires people to leave their politics at the door.

It’s a complicated issue…

It is a complicated issue!

I don’t profess to be a professor of it but there does seem to be some themes coming out of the stuff I have read:

Management of watercourses – seems to have reduced because of legislation as to whose responsibility it is

Building on flood plains / inadvertently diverting watercourse with buildings

I read an article last week that said the mills upstream used to attenuate the flow and allow for more storage capacity in Yorkshire – as they ponds are falling into disrepair this effect is much reduced

I don’t think there will be a silver bullet- probable all of the comments above need to be considered and a complex plan incorporating many strategies put into place.

The other thing that springs to mind is how far is it reasonable to go with the measures? We have never experienced the level of rainfall that we have had last month or so in Yorkshire – should this be the level of rainfall planned (and costed) for?

I am not an engineer etc………….

My parents live at Cragg Vale & when I drove past Baitings dam on boxing day, it looked like a spectacular amount of water was coming over the spillway, then I guess running down the valley to Sowerby Bridge & contributing to the flooding in the Calder valley & beyond. No doubt this was happening all over the area.
So i can see how better management of the uplands could help keep water above the reservoir catchments for longer. But (without trying to sound like an ar$e) when a long period of dry weather & possible drought comes round, surely there would be a requirement to get what little water there is in the uplands into the resevoirs to be used?

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/pressure-grows-to-get-eu-flood-aid-for-cumbria-1.1232359

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-cameron-refuses-ask-eu-7122896

There is certainly an issue with peoples expectations on flood prevention. Undoubtedly things need to be reviewed and thought through properly in a joined up manner, but you can’t protect everywhere against unprecedented levels of rain.

Flooding is horrendous, and it seems to be becoming more regular, but none of the places affected have “never” flooded before. I’ve talked on other threads of people in Yalding in Kent, within living memory, abandoning the ground floor of their properties in the winter.

Does there also need to be a realisation that what used to be 1 in 100 year events are now regular and that given the ‘new normal’ aka climate change historical flooding models used for planning will need to be revised?

I noticed whilst reading reports on the Boxing Day floods that where I used to live in the Colne Valley didn’t have any serious flood damage. The Colne is next door to Calderdale, just to the south in Kirklees, and is basically comparable in terms of geography, geology, average rainfall, etc. There was a bit of overflow from river to canal in places, and that’s it I think. I remember when I was a kid Marsden and Slaithwaite, the villages at the top of that valley, used to flood regularly when it rained heavily, and there are documented major floods historically, so it’s not like it can’t get properly soggy up there.

One thing that is different about the Colne Valley though is that the majority of the catchment at the top is owned by the National Trust, and they have specific strategies in place to retain water on the tops. They just finished a really big project on this last summer, and there are loads of little dams all over the peat up there now. I’d be interested to know if the amount of rain was comparable on Boxing Day, and if the NT’s work in managing the peat moors might have slowed the run off enough to avoid disaster further down the valley. Just a thought really, but worth bearing in mind I think – hopefully the relevant people talk to each other about this stuff, I dunno…

There is certainly an issue with peoples expectations on flood prevention.

This. Yes, things can be done better (they nearly always can) however there will always be extreme events that either cannot be predicted, or that have solutions for which would be unpalatable as a society. Sadly it comes down to what is socially acceptable in terms of cost, resources and time. It is virtually impossible to prevent any flooding occurring if you look at realistic solutions. All you can really do is try and protect high value locations, attenuate as mush as possible, and otherwise look at flood resiliant construction (i.e. accepting it will flood, but designing in quicker recovery).

In a similar way it would be easy to say ‘lets make all new buildings completely fireproof,’ however no one would fund them, no one would buy them and no one would want to live in them.

as part of my small involvment with an mtb advocacy group, i attend a few land-management meetings. Try suggesting that we could let a few trees grow on the moors and people get very angry, very quickly.

You should see the full scale frothing that has erupted over Stakis wanting to plant managed forest behind my town, apparently it’ll “destroy the land that walkers come from miles around to use” (despite having never seen a walker up there in my puff barring a local with a dog on the old cattle road).

And then there’s the small scale hydro…