| Topic: | Re:Re:SuDS ? Nobody available to deal with the matter ? | |
| Posted by: | Raymond Havelock | |
| Date/Time: | 17/04/25 01:55:00 |
| SuDS are pointless if there is no maintenance and in many countries SuDS end up stagnant and contaminated water occurs because of this very factor. The management does not always work as made out to be. SuDs are only really being used to enable additional developments in already dense and developed locations. This is a wet island. Heavy rain and cloudbursts are not uncommon and never have been for hundreds of years. And being temperate, largely irregular. The geology is formed from it and that is how and where settlements developed. In urban development sewers and drainage was long implemented and much of what we have is more than adequate for protracted rainfall and downpours. But examples of the other day show the sheer amount of blocked gully drains, yet the overflow vents in the central drains seldom overflow which indicates a lot of the water does not get to the central ducts. Water management of fundamental maintenance has been reducing and near non existent for over half a century unaddressed and remains so. It cannot be done with an app or a computer at a desk or a coffee shop, its sound local knowledge and hands at the pump stuff. Not the first choice for most as it's a wet, cold and often dark job in the winter months. When was the last time anyone saw the main drains in their street being descaled or sludged out ? It is pointless cooking up schemes and wheeling them out as rose tinted enviro friendly et all without proper maintenance. If the basics were routinely and properly carried out in the first place, then most SuDS would not be required even if we had treble the rainfall. Misuse of floodplains and existing infrastructure being sold and developed upon remains permissible and simply creates problems. Most applied are in existing extreme areas of over densification and this is largely the intention of enablement in the London Basin. If done on the cheap it means losing large opens spaces - which are likely to be parks and usable recreational land rather than sub surface means. Many of these schemes would not be needed if the drainages network was properly maintained which means descaling and very regular cleaning of gulley drains. In London it is barely done at all in all 32 Boroughs and has not for nearing half a century. Most of the detritus is caused by street tree leaves and thus the leafier boroughs have larger problems. You cannot have it both ways. Trees mean maintenance not just in their adequate pruning and ensuring good mature stock but also caring up after them in over developed areas, Their leaf fall does not get the same regenerative benefit as rural trees or those on undeveloped land. Driveways are a drop in the ocean front gardens are in the main small and the topsoil usually minimal with the building detritus of bricks slate aggregates and so on being the norm on structures going back hundred plus years ago. There were no skips or disposals it was dumped and grassed over. Even some Parks are like that. Plus under all that are the waste pipes and drains as well as most water supplies. There has never really been much in the way of water soaking drainage. In anycase at that point the water table kicks in and depending on the Topographical surveys of a district that determines the water table and sub drainage. In this area there is a continual slight fall from Horsenden and Hangar Hills all the way to the Thames at Brentford and Isleworth with several types of substrates. Ducted brooks and streams and underground fissures all run down to the Thames and have done for hundreds of years. But local mapping is very poor to this day, riddled with errors and conflicting surveys. Flood risks are not really a serious issue except for the River Brent who's flood plain is desired for developing on. The problem is over development and take a look at most new ones. A patch here and a patch there but deep underneath is what? Generally concrete piles and deep foundations all of which push the water table up. That adds to damp in smaller dwellings and older dwellings. SuDS do not address or remedy this. It's yet again another tool to further overdevelopment and those vested interests that lurk. |