Arun catchment future

23 Pages·2017·3.39 MB·English

Arun catchment future

All can be protected

January 2017
Withdrawal is no protection
The Arun catchment community, riparian owners and the unique biodiverse green and pleasant wetland
meadows and all their dependants are going to pay an extremely high price for the short comings with the

Environment Agency's ability to co-ordinate and deliver maintenance and capital works at an affordable price.
With the Environment Agency seemingly unable or unwilling to engage with the community in an open and
honest way to allow the delivery of a new dawn in river basin management where the community, riparian
owners and land managers are welcomed and treated as equal partners with common goals.
With the full horror of the Environment Agency interpretation and thus implementation of the LTRAS
Document having become clear.
The Environment agency have seemly lost the appetite for flood management and maintenance throughout the
catchment communities, allowing the main channel and its defences to fall into a state of disrepair. Through
proposed Environment Agency withdrawal, riparian landowners will be forced to protect and take on the
financial burden and liabilities not only for their own land but in effect, the whole catchment. This is possibly a
form of forced labour.
Riparian owners will then be exposed to unlimited liabilities solely based on an attempted re-interpretation of
the legislation and common law position. This conflicts with the Environment Agencies own guidance on
riparian responsibilities and as yet untested or applied anywhere else before. The Environment Agency are
trying to get to a pre-determined end point, rather than an open and transparent process with all options being
properly considered.
At a time when the effects of global warming are starting to effect the country, the storms are becoming more
frequent, intense and with sea level rise becoming a reality, to abandon the catchment and its many communities
with no attempt of protection in one of the most valuable and built up areas of the country in the heart of the
South Downs National park is fundamentally inconceivable.
The LTRAS Document is a massive missed opportunity to deliver a ground braking process to engage with the
communities to defend our green and pleasant land.
We need a immediate and fundamental policy change from Environment Agency staff, whose position is
entrenched with no room for open and honest inclusion of constructive local land owner views in vital strategic
investigations. This only highlights that engaging with landowners is still only treated as a tick box exercise
throughout the IDD Dissolution and the LTRAS process. This view has been generated by many months and
years of poorly planned processes bathed in misleading information in an attempt to carry the process at
seemingly any cost.
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The Arun Vision

LTRAS
SU3 - Continued
Lower Tidal River protection of RAMSAR,
SU5 - Continued flood Arun Strategy SPA, SSSI
protection, if affordable. sites

Benefits

?

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Pollution
affected areas
increased

Increased costs
and life
threatening
delays for Unmanaged
emergency realignment
services
attending
incidents

LTRAS
Lower Tidal
River Arun
Strategy

Detrimental
effects

Irreversible
Destruction by decline to
inundation of the environmentally
unique sensitive
biodiverse water farmland
meadows

Destruction of
rare freshwater
biodiverse
habitats by
irreversible
saltwater
inundation

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Will fail the
catchment
community by
withdrawal of co-
ordinated river
maintenance and
flood management

Flooding to
infrastructure
causes increased The few forced to
costs and delays defend the many
to struggling rural
communities and
businesses

LTRAS - The
greatest missed
opportunity for
the Arun
Catchment
Community and
conservation
interests in the
last 60 years

Increased costs to Interpreting
mitigate effects of outdated laws to
flooding to expose riparian
infrastructures: owners to
i.e. financial ruin
roads, rail, power
supplies etc

Distancing the
Environment
Agency from the
vulnerable
communities they
have a moral duty
to protect
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The way forward
Action Points
 Form a recognised catchment wide river authority
 Educate and consult the catchment community
 Carry out regular surveys of the main rivers to identify issues
 Organise relevant consents
 Carry out regular maintenance and targeted works
 Investigate funding streams
If we are committed to defend our beloved communities, our family homes, businesses and sensitive
environmental sites we are privileged to be the custodians of, against the ever increasing threats of global
warming, then it will take the entire communities engagement and participation both practically and financial to
implement the ground breaking strategy.
To protect the catchment the entire water course needs to be included; from where every drop of water falls
onto ground which drains eventually into the River Arun. This is where the protection of vulnerable
communities and the sites of European importance will start. It will also offer an phenomenal opportunity for
the protection and creation of wetland corridors throughout the catchment.
In the 1950's the River Board instigated the Arun Banks Flood Relief Scheme, building flood banks, structures,
clearing of the main channel and altering ditches, all to manage water in an effective way. This created, and now
protects, the rich and diverse habitat we deem valuable today. This scheme has served us well in the most,
protecting the communities and rural businesses and allowing them to flourish. As these old structures have
started to deteriorate due to recent maintenance withdrawal, the problems have escalated.
Fortunately, all these defences form a good starting point for the future protection of the catchment. We need to
look further up stream to the head of the catchment to help us create the level of protection now required,
coupled with increasing the height of the existing flood banks, maintaining existing structures and clearing
localised blockages and pinch points in the main channel.
The spoil from the large housing developments up stream could be used to increase the flood banks. This
material is a problem to the developers and they will cover the cost of transport and the plant to put it in place.
Increased protection for no cost, not a bad start. Due to the diverse nature of works required, the project should
be able to attract funding from many sources, including help from local groups landowners. A good starting
point would be educating the communities as to why they need to get involved in a self-help scheme. The most
important part of all this is an enthusiastic single organisation, delivery based, to carry out the investigation
works and then to over see and co-ordinate where and when the works need to be carried out and by whom,
finding funding and delivering the required consents.
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History

The Arun and Rother catchment is home to vibrant functioning communities containing homes, businesses and
important transport links in the south east of the country. The Arun passes through some well populated areas
that have been considerably affected by flooding in recent years; therefore it is vital that an affordable plan is
developed to reduce the risk and impact of flooding within the local communities throughout the catchment
both now and in the future.

Aerial view of Arun Valley in flood from Houghton Causeway facing north 27/12/2013

Increasing risk of flooding
The Arun catchment floods in various areas due to significant rainfall events. Run-off from urban
developments is causing ever increasing pressure upon the tributaries feeding the main river where tidal
influences compound the problem. These flood events can and have caused serious damage to property, and
financial difficulty to businesses and the community living and working within the catchment.

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Lets not forget Christmas 2013
In the weeks before Christmas heavy rain had saturated the catchment and a severe rain fall event to the north
of the catchment started to effect the already stretched flood defences. The flood meadows were already at
capacity. The additional flood water continued to overtop the levies thus inundating family homes, rural
business premises and roads.
On the main London Littlehampton railway line at Coldwaltham, the railway embankment becomes the flood
defence, trains were stopped by the height of the
flood surge on Christmas Eve.
Poorly maintained flood defences and tidal flaps
failed and continued to do so for weeks. Power
failed, power lines across the flood meadows were
damaged and were unable to be repaired for weeks
due to the depth of water. Roads remained flooded.
The A29 south of Pulborough was impassable on a
Flooded family homes in Arun Ca tchment
daily basis due the fluctuating water levels. Signage
was not kept up to date, roads were closed and small
rural businesses struggled to survive as cash flows plummeted.

Motorists inevitably drove into flood water endangering
life and damaging vehicles. Minor roads were
inundated for weeks. Although small, they are used by
the thriving vibrant rural community on a daily basis;
mums taking children to and from school, emergency
services, carers, essential daily collections and
deliveries to rural businesses etc, all having to take long
and time consuming detours. Despite the main trunk
roads reopening these minor routes remained closed
causing increasing costs and pressure to already
stretched rural communities.

Another home flooded to
the height of the kitchen
worktops

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Timberley rail viaduct in summer

Timberley rail viaduct as water level drops

The locals have learnt over the years to live, work, enjoy and respect the river. The flood events only highlight
the poor policy decisions of the last twenty years to slowly withdraw all river maintenance.
The environment agency state that we have not had a major tidal and fluvial event concurrently. If this is true
the consequences of such an event will be catastrophic; endangering life, inundating untold family homes and
commercial properties.
Greatham Road Greatham Road in flood

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Storage of water

The historic man-made flood meadows are capable of mitigating the average rainfall events thus protecting the
downstream communities. In times of flood, well maintained flood meadows can protect and enable local
communities to continue with little disruption. To enable the flood meadows to function effectively ongoing
maintenance is essential to reduce the effects of;

 Changing agricultural practices – increased run off
Sluice outfall channel blocked by sediment
and erosion
 Change of land use from agricultural to
recreational – lack of co-ordinated maintenance to
historic ditch systems leading to reduced capacity.
 Tidal influences
 Climate change (increased severity/more regular
flooding )
 Increases in development (faster run-off)

Submerged obstruction blocking the main channel

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