Streetscene – June Report
Rivercourt Road Traffic Restrictions
Members will be aware hopefully of the traffic restrictions imposed by the Council upon Rivercourt Road earlier this year meaning that access is only permitted for borough residents. Road signs state ‘Local Access Only’. Others will be fined if they use this route unless they are registered for the day by a resident or business as visitors on RingGo.
When this was first mooted BRA commented on this and, in particular,r opposed the two way plan for the road and raised doubts about the road layout appearing to raise issues of safety risks for drivers at both ends of the road. There were however potential benefits from reducing through traffic coming into the area.
We have been monitoring this and there has been much comment on Nextdoor and elsewhere, illustrating the difficulties and risks drivers are experiencing in practice.
Recently we were made aware by members of accidents at the junction with the A4 and near misses as drivers unfamiliar with the restrictions are stopped dead in their tracks to read the signs and then to avoid a fine have to reverse out or complete a complicated turn to get back onto the A4 while permitted traffic behind them fails to stop or backs up on the main road. The turning circles provided for this as part of the scheme are proving inadequate as predicted.
We have raised this again with the Leader of the Council. His reply was ‘I’ve picked up a series of problems with the implementation of this scheme so will review it with the new cabinet member Cllr. Florian Chevoppe-Verdier.’
We are waiting to hear further and will report back when we do. Hopefully they will make changes to make this safer.
Brackenbury Flood Action Group
We have formed a small flood action group from members who are local residents and whose homes have been flooded in recent years from overflowing sewers after heavy rain.
This group has been set up in conjunction with the National Flood Forum who are facilitating and supporting the process.
The overall aim is to work with local Flood Risk Management Authorities – essentially in our case Thames Water and the Council. We have identified the following as key objectives which we want to pursue in collaboration with the relevant agencies:
• To reduce our collective risk of surface water and sewer flooding
• To ensure that residents are informed and can play an active role within local flood risk management efforts
• To encourage awareness of flood risk in the wider community
• To ensure that people are protected and informed in the event of a flood, particularly those most vulnerable
• To ensure, where possible, that new developments and local works do not have an adverse effect on our collective flood risk
• To support the authorities in delivering action in our area
To this end we have met with Thames Water representatives and the LBHF’s flood risk management team to ask specific questions and to seek information about their plans and actions to reduce flood risks going forward. This is an ongoing process, and we will be holding further meetings starting in the Autumn to secure their responses and challenge them further on additional points.
Of particular concern is lack of information coming from Thames Water and little clarity on what actions they intend in terms of fitting NRVs (non-return valves) or FLIPs (sump pumps) to affected properties and on what criteria they use to determine which properties are suitable or need protecting.
Thames’ focus has been with the residents who are their customers but many of whom may be short-term tenants and we have raised concerns about them also needing to reach out to landlords, both private and in the social sector, who would have the ultimate say about works to their properties and should take greater care to protect them against future flooding.
We have also met the Leader of the Council to express our concerns about sewer flooding in the area and Stephen Cowan has committed to sponsoring some appropriate research on flood risks to inform our discussions.
This research will include the impact of new developments potentially adding to the stress on the sewer system, thus increasing flood risk and on the effectiveness of SuDs (sustainable drainage systems) and the necessary scale of these that may be required in absorbing excess rainwater, which is seen as a more practical alternative by many to increasing sewer sizes.
He will involve Imperial College in this research who are partners with the Council on a number of climate related fronts.
There are also issues around insurance raised as many residents are finding difficulty in obtaining relevant cover either at all or at an economic price after having been flooded in some cases even after protective NRVs have been fitted.
If you are affected by any of these issues please write to us at: streetscene@brackenburyresidents.co.uk .