Letter: What Is the Real Purpose of the Flood Alleviation Scheme?

Published on: 11 Apr, 2024
Updated on: 11 Apr, 2024

From Ben Paton

In response to: Flood Alleviation Scheme is Guildford’s ‘Biggest Opportunity Since 1900’

The article cites Mr Rigg as saying: “When the Government said Guildford had to deliver 10,000 homes, they had to all go in the green belt and the villages, because nobody got the flooding scheme underway and released the brownfield sites.”

This statement is highly misleading. It is not true that the Government chose Guildford’s housing target – the borough council did that. The then Conservative council went for the largest possible housing target by refusing to apply any constraints and to provide an ‘exceptional circumstance’ to justify building on the green belt.

It is not true that if there had been a flood protection scheme in place in 2019 the council would have shown any less enthusiasm in its 2019 Local Plan for building on green field green belt sites.

Why is the Environment Agency considering this flood alleviation scheme? Is it to: 1. facilitate further housing developments? 2. to compensate for climate change / more flash floods? or 3. to compensate for the planned/recent housing development upstream – in Godalming and elsewere?

The suggestion is that the work will facilitate more housing in Guildford town ie reason #1 and the development lobby wants us to get excited about that.

But the reality is that the work is necessary to alleviate significantly greater flood risk. ie reasons #2 and #3. Mitigating a deteriorating situation is almost certainly necessary to reduce future damage from climate change but it is not a solution for a disastrous Local Plan.What is needed is a proper review of the 2019 Local Plan and an objective revision of the housing target.

However Mr Rigg has shown no interest in reviewing the Local Plan or adjusting the housing target for the new ONS population projections.

The council has already planned for 2,000 houses right next to the river Wey at its proposed Slyfield new town. To facilitate that the council is already spending millions of pounds of public money to subsidise the re-location of the sewage works. Much of that money may have been wasted if building next to the river turns out to be environmental nonsense.

Ostensibly the Environment Agency and Ofwat have failed to prevent sewage polluting most of the rivers in England. Will the EA’s efforts to prevent flooding be more effective than its prevention of sewage pollution?

Responses to Letter: What Is the Real Purpose of the Flood Alleviation Scheme?

Jim Allen Reply

April 11, 2024 at 8:48 pm

There appears to be a slight inaccuracy in the numbers and names mentioned. I believe the Weyside Urban Village comprises 1,550 accommodation units.

Regarding the old sewage works, the upgrade should have been scheduled to commence in 2010 to ensure readiness for reaching capacity in 2017. However, the project was delayed due to Guildford Borough Council’s insistence on an unjustified relocation. It is important to clarify that the Environment Agency still considers the old sewage works to be within its dry weather flow allowance and licence, despite exceeding its personal equivalent capacity capacity in 2017 of 898,200 (one personal equivalent is one flush with solid waste).

My understanding and assumption are that the new sewage works are being financed through a public works loan from the central government to Guildford Borough Council. This loan is repayable at a low interest rate by the residents of Guildford Borough. The operations of the new sewage works are being managed by Thames Water on behalf of Guildford Borough Council.

If my assumptions of the financing is incorrect, I am confident that either Guildford Borough Council or Thames Water Plc will clarify any erroneous assumptions and not withstanding their commercial confidentiality agreement.
Ben Paton Reply

April 14, 2024 at 6:10 am

Mr Allen’s knowledge of the detail is greater than mine.

I have gone on the report into the Council’s finances referred to in earlier Dragon articles and published in July last year – available on this link:-
https://democracy.guildford.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=29938

See the table in para 7.12. It states that from 2016 and end of 2024 the council will have spent just under £80 million on the Weyside Urban Village. My guess is that that money is required to make an intrinsically unsustainable site – in a flood zone – more sustainable. It is not clear how much more the council will have to put in before the first house is built. Time will tell if this is money well spent or a white elephant.

Mr Allen points out that the “Environment Agency still considers the old sewage works to be within its dry weather flow allowance and licence, despite exceeding its personal equivalent capacity capacity in 2017 of 898,200 (one personal equivalent is one flush with solid waste).”

Given that Thames Water regularly releases untreated sewage into the river Wey every year there are grounds to believe that the EA applies too low a standard when granting its licenses and/or is inherently optimistic.

Is the river/navigation water downstream clean enough to swim in?

It does not appear to be a foregone conclusion that the finances of either Thames Water or Guildford Borough Council will permit WUV project to proceed to a conclusion without some “turbulence” along the flight path.