Planning lunacy.

Hi,

Are planning offices now employing lunatics?

Fury as planners say housing estate on floodplain is 'worth the risk'

The people who approved these plans should be made to move into one of the new homes and given a free pair of waders. The area is notorious for flooding being so near the the river Calder;

ship inn mirfield flood - Google Search

A lot of misery ahead for the home owners once the houses are built; worth the risk; how ridiculous.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Definitely Retired! I'm sure there's money exchanging hands to get these places pushed through. Anyone wise enough or knows the area has a choice whether to buy or not. What also amazes me is that householders manage to get insurance.

 

They can probably only get insurance once
After the place floods, narrr.

 

Every day I go past an area of newbuild houses, bi-folding glass doors, roof terraces and the lot, you know what I mean. They are built between a country park famous for it's natural ponds and swampland, and a field. The houses sit in a depression about 1m beneath the level of the 4 lane road I take.

Unsurprisingly, the yet unbuilt area of grass in front of the houses turned into a large pond in September, and has steadily grown ever since. Great for the wildlife, but I'm just waiting to see when someone has the brilliant idea to pave it over to make parking spaces... guess where the water will go?

Being very modern the houses are easily accessible with wheelchair which means the door opens straight to the pavement and there is no step.

I'm no architect but even I can see that this is going to go very, very wrong seen the naturally high ground water level combined with the situation and the North East lot of rainfall.

But hey, bi-folding glass doors are nice

 

We do live in a money hungry crazy world seems there are more sane people in the mad house than out

 

It's not just new houses being build, agri sheds some so big you can but 5-6 houses inside one!
New industrial areas with big sheds

The water has to go somewhere, it's getting worse

 

Local can always refer to secretary of state to appeal.

It's damned stupid place to build as they won;t get house insurance so mortgages will be impossible so there won't be any home owners to worry about it

 

Housing going up round here, as everywhere, at a furious rate. Woking is being invigorated with huge towers of apartments and no parking (because no-one drives a car right...?); locals up in arms etc. Me, I don;t care. It's going to happen outwards or upwards so there's nothing to fight against in my opinion. Traffic in the area is a bit of a nightmare though!

 

Hi,

Lots of new houses are proposed to be built locally; we've had protesters at our door with petitions against building for all kinds of reasons; I ask each with the petition if he/she lives up a tree or in a cave; hypocrites the lot of them? We have a beautiful detached bungalow which was built with others on our small estate on former farming land.

Building regulations and permissions used to make sense but building on flood plains is building misery and heartache.

Mortgage companies and insurance companies really should condemn such building practices and insist proper homes be built away from things like flooding or mining subsidence even building on brown sites where factories or chemical works have contaminated the ground; as usual greed will win the day.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Completely agree Colin! As long as there are specialist insurance policies for high risk in a flood plain then the houses continue to be built. Mortgage companies should also know better but it's all money to them :(
Maybe if the plan near you creates several storm drains it might be OK... but you have a hard time fighting nature

 

On the subject of building on flood plains.
We have this problem, so many new houses, not enough water in summer, but too much in winter.
Something is going wrong and its basically the land mass is not big enough.

We should build massive reservoirs to divert the winter floods into, but where are you going to put them?
Farm land is being eaten up by building houses, with no thought about amenities, new roads are not being built, but then again, they take up countryside and farm land.

Not sure where it will end, but I'm glad I wont be around when it does.

People will all be living in an urban cesspit in 100 yrs or less.
Which is why I have no time for global warming/climate change or any other environmental government tax raising scheme.

 

Hi,

Thanks Loofah. Storm drains are fine if there's somewhere to discharge water to but the whole area along the River Calder is bad news. Our local lane running up to the main road on the steep valley side doesn't actually flood but in very heavy rain the manhole covers pop off resulting in spectacular fountains; water run off from our large rear garden can result in a 5' wide stream down the side of our bungalow; strangely flooding has never been a problem along our valley but the other side of the hill down in Mirfield is forever flooding and it's here the new houses are to be built. The Calder runs for many miles and upstream in Hebden Bridge they have nightmares when it rains.

hebden bridge floods july 2019 - Google Search

When we applied for home insurance one of the questions was how near are we to a stream or river; I just hope the house builder goes belly up not selling a single newly built house but people are silly and they will sell.

Unfortunately greed rules these days.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

As proposals for developing on flood plains will persist, simple rules should be introduced. SuDS for one, identifying exactly where the water will go and what is up and down stream of it, how is that water flow to be managed and what are the once in 100 events? Requirements to plant high levels of water absorbing trees such as weeping willow (Which are the Best Hardy Trees for Wet Areas in UK - Paramount Plants) etc and formal management requirements with penalties.
It might even put the builders off if done right!

 

Well, if the land is low lying ie. just above river level, how can you get rid of the water when we get lots of rain?
I think that is why the land is classed as flood plains

Weeping willows extract virtually no water in winter, being dormant, like most trees at that time of the year.Anyway, no room for such trees, they take up far too much space in the modern housing development.

 

Hence the need to identify what is upstream and how is that managed... Personally I think it's idiotic to consider it but you know councils!