Can flooding be solved?
Tuesday August 25, 2009
The majority of sewer flooding in the borough can be solved without the multi-billion pound Tideway Tunnel, Thames Water admitted this week.
For the first time Thames Water bosses have said the Counters Creek flood relief scheme is not dependent on the Tideway Tunnel – or super sewer, as it is also known – being built.
The council’s Cleaner Greener Scrutiny Committee has invited Thames Water officials to a public meeting next month to update residents on the proposals for Counters Creek. The meeting is open to all and starts at 7:00pm on Thursday, September 17 in the Small Hall at Hammersmith Town Hall.
Counters Creek is an old tributary of the Thames, which the Victorians incorporated into the sewer system and now flows underground. It captures most of the borough’s sewage and engineers expect the flood relief scheme – which would increase capacity – to solve the vast majority of sewer flooding in the area.
In contrast the Tideway Tunnel would do little to solve flooding and is designed solely to improve water quality in the Thames. If the mega pipe is ever built the project threatens to bring years of construction misery as well as possibly blighting several picturesque parks.
In a letter to H&F Council, a Thames Water spokesman writes: ‘These two schemes are being implemented to achieve very different aims. One is to reduce high risk sewer flooding. The other is to improve the water quality of the River Thames. The Counters Creek scheme aims to reduce the extensive and long-standing problems of sewer flooding. It is a local solution to a local problem, and can be implemented irrespective of the Thames Tunnel.’
Representatives from the water utility faced dozens of angry residents at a council run scrutiny meeting last year. Some householders have been flooded out four times since 2004 and were astonished when red-faced Thames Water officials admitted that the £2.2 billion super-sewer would do virtually nothing to alleviate sewer flooding.
However, the Counters Creek flood relief scheme could solve many of the long standing localised sewer flooding problems and be just the solution that residents have been demanding.
Raj Bhatia, Chairman of the Stamford Brook Residents Association, says: “Unlike the super sewer, where there are many unanswered questions, we do believe that the Counters Creek flood relief scheme will solve the problem it is designed to.
“It is good news that Thames Water has said that the two schemes are completely independent of each other. In our view the Counters Creek scheme is absolutely vital. The super sewer is not.”
In times of heavy rainfall Counters Creek has to handle much of the borough’s storm water as well as a large amount of sewage from Camden and Brent. The lack of capacity in the current Counters Creek system means that sometimes foul water ends up flooding low-lying properties. By constructing new sewers and increasing the capacity of Counters Creek the flood risk will be diminished.
Cllr Nicholas Botterill, H&F Council Deputy Leader, says: “Thames Water’s letter is really helpful as it unequivocally says the Counters Creek flood relief scheme is not dependent on the Tideway Tunnel being built.
“This is the first signal from Thames Water that they can solve residents’ concerns about localised flooding without building the costly and unpopular super sewer. We can now separate the two issues and the number one priority must be to stop foul sewage flowing into residents’ homes during heavy rain.”
Thames Water hopes that the improvements to Counters Creek could be completed within nine years. However, the water giant needs to officially confirm that the recent Ofwat decision on water charges still enables development work to proceed and further approval would then be needed for the works themselves – once a detailed proposal has been developed.
» Download the Thames Water Counters Creek study findings and proposals document (pdf 485KB)
