Flooding in Derbyshire Dales

Many of the preventative measures around flooding are related to the Lead Flood Authority (which is the responsibility of Derbyshire County Council) and the District Council has highlighted this issue to them:

One of the problems that we face as climate change shifts our winters towards ‘warm, wet and windy’ is how to cope with heavier rainfall, especially in urban areas. With more hard surfaces, as fields become built upon, there is a greater volume of rain water that needs to be safely channelled away. 

One of the strategies introduced in recent times is the requirement for a developer to have a suitable Sustainable Drainage System – SuDS. This, at its simplest, is a way of collecting the rainwater falling on the roads and paved areas of an estate and only allowing it to flow into nearest watercourse (or, if absolutely necessary, a sewer) at a controlled rate.  In this way the stream or sewer is not going to be overwhelmed and potentially lead to flooding or contamination.

Frequently the most obvious feature of a SuDS is a ‘balancing pond’.  This is where the developer has created a depression in the land where ‘run off’ can collect. They should be capable of holding the water from extreme downpours, with the pond filling up and then slowly draining away safely.

However some SuDS don’t seem to be behaving correctly, appearing to have the same level of water all the time. Others seem to collect no water at all.  These observations of the SUDS have occurred alongside examples of flooding events and this suggests that all is not quite as it should be.

Derbyshire Dales Liberal Democrat Councillors have suggested that there needs to be much more critical assessment of the drainage schemes proposed by developers at the initial planning stage.

Trying to sort out the shortcomings after the SuDS have been constructed is much more difficult and may have already given rise to adverse effects. This is where we hope that the Lead Local Flood Authority (run by Derbyshire County Council) will take a more effective stance in making sure that SuDS will perform correctly.