People living in Patcham are being warned the village could flood tomorrow as yet more rain is forecast.
The Met Office says as much as 50mm of rain could fall in six hours, with a yellow be aware warning in place from midday tomorrow until 3am on Friday.
IN a circular sent just before 7am this morning David Harris, who monitors groundwater in Patcham, said water levels at the Ladies Mile borehole are now rising at more than 1m every day.
He says if it continues to rise at the same speed, cellars will flood in eight days, and roads in 11 days – but if the rain forecast speeds this up, this could happen even sooner.
At the time of publication, groundwater levels were at 38.53m above sea level at Ladies Mile – a metre higher than 6am this morning.
The village’s cellars begin to flood at 43.8m and surface flooding happens at 47m.
Mr Harris said: “This is a difficult one to forecast at this stage. My best prediction is that that the speed of rise will increase with the advent of the next four hours rain and then tomorrow’s forecast rainfall.
“The groundwater will rise close to the surface and may just ingress some cellars and may go artesian, i.e. springs breaking out at the Southern end of Old London Road.
“But then there is forecast a period of rising atmospheric pressure which will give us an increasingly dry period and so the groundwater may peak at a level very close to the surface.
“Summarising, it is a very close run prediction, so please keep all of your anti-flooding precautions in a state of immediate readiness and keep clicking on the Environment Agency link in order closely to watch the groundwater’s rising state.
The Met Office warning says: “A spell of rain is expected to move northeast across southern and eastern parts of England on Thursday, clearing during Thursday night.
“The track of the heaviest rainfall remains very uncertain, but there is a chance of 20-30 mm falling in 6-9 hours across a portion of the warning area, with a few places perhaps seeing 40-50 mm. Impacts are more likely due to the current very wet ground across the region.”
This issue of localised flooding in parts of the Patcham area and elsewhere has existed for many years. Why hasn’t much been done about it? Why aren’t street drains properly unblocked in the Brighton and Hove? This is partly a Government infrastructure issue and partly a failure of the Council under the Greens (again!).
The council is Labour
It is now, but it was Green for a long time and they did nothing for infrastructure. You cannot fix all of the neglect in the short time they have had the reins.
A government issue that is so funny. Blah blah blah
Maybe speak to Southern water. Lol
I’m not sure Southern Water are in the business of street cleaning are they? But agree the drainage is definitely Southern Water’s issue, although they will probably just flush everything out to sea and then spend the money we pay them to advertise that we live in a water stressed area and not to use water we pay for instead! 🙂
Southern Water don’t have any obligation to manage groundwater flooding, this is the council’s responsibility. Clearing the drains is also the council’s responsibility and there is allocated budget for this to be done, there are however more drains than budget allows (especially as development is constant), but this doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s hardly ever done.
I’ve seen residents with broom poles clearing their own drains and although it won’t help with a big groundwater flooding incident it does help at other times.
The council could do what they’re supposed to and in past years they haven’t. The flooded Mill Road by the BP garage A23/A27 is a relevant example where the blocked drains are causing a real problem for drivers there.
The drains of brighton are under used as most of the road gullies are blocked with silt and leaves.
On the upside the water runoff takes the litter down to the sea saving on street sweeper costs. I start to see the cunning logic.
The flooding that David Harris is talking about is groundwater flooding in the Old London Road area so the gullies being blocked will have zero effect on that as water will be rising up through them. Agree though that they are the major cause of surface water flooding when we get heavy rain when the groundwater is not so high. The picture in this article is not the Old London Road and flooding here is caused by surface water and inadequate and poorly maintained drainage.
Not only are the drains not cleaned often enough, but there aren’t enough of them for the water to drain into.
Gulley suckers cannot get a most of the gulleys because they usually have cars parked over them.