Environment Agency Floodline Letters

Last February many households in Burton Joyce received a letter from the Environment Agency Floodline saying that their property was at risk of flooding and advising people to register with the EA Floodline.  This letter mystified many of us whose houses were not at flood risk according to the EA’s own flooding map.  Umbrage was taken in some households that the letter was addressed to the woman of the house, rather than the male!
At last a response, explanation and apology has arrived.  The essence is that the EA’s flood-plain map defines which houses are at flood risk – see this map in the library entrance – but the warning letter was confusingly sent to a wider range of people
Extract from the response:
“… your property is located in an area that is close to a natural floodplain for the River Trent but not actually located within the floodplain…. This is reflected on the Flood Map on our website and in the information we provide to insurers.
In previous years we have only contacted people at high risk of flooding but with our current mailshot we have contacted people who live close by to the floodplain… I would like to apologise for any confusion our mailing may have caused with respect to the flood risk to your property.  … We will ensure that any future mailings to property located close to the floodplain get a different mailing explaining why they are being contacted rather than the generic mailing which you received...  I would like to reassure you that our mailing will not affect your insurance…”
It has taken a very large number of phone calls, internet searches, letters and e-mails over seven months to get this response from the EA.  Persistence is something BJRA is good at but why should we have to do this in order to get a response to a simple inquiry?
Residents who have tried to take up this issue must have been as infuriated as we were to notice that the Floodline letters were sent without any address or contact telephone number apart from the Floodline Registration Number which took us to a Belfast call-centre, where staff were unable to answer queries.  You may therefore find the following contact details helpful:
Contact: Katie Slater, Campaigns Officer
Address: Rio House, Waterside Drive, Aztec West, Almondsbury, Bristol BS32 4UD
Customer services line: 08708 506 506

Tarmac withdraws Bulcote Farm planning application

Today Tarmac withdrew its planning application for Bulcote Farm.

In a letter to Nottinghamshire County Council, Tarmac said:
”I … hereby withdraw the above planning application.  The Company wishes to review the proposed development with a view to resubmitting an application in the future.”

At last!

Notts County Council and Tarmac - A Special Relationship

Tarmac has not submitted the information required about their Bulcote Farm planning application by Nottinghamshire County Council by the deadline of 31 August. Is this the end of Tarmac’s plans to turn our lovely riverside into a quarry? Unfortunately not. While the “Gunthorpe allocation” remains in the County Minerals Plan, Tarmac or anyone else can apply to mine this site.

We have argued repeatedly that the site is not suitable for quarrying – there are too many risk factors here quite apart from the destruction of the lovely riverside area. So we are committed to getting the “Gunthorpe allocation” removed from the Plan.

During the past four years, a lot of nasty things have crawled out of the woodwork while we have been researching the practical problems of the site and investigating the legality of the procedures undertaken by the County Council as they steam-rolled the “Gunthorpe allocation” into the Plan, against all the evidence of its unsuitability.

We believe that there should be a full investigation into the whole affair.  There are many questions that need answering.

There is a special relationship between Tarmac and the County Council; Tarmac is the Council’s chosen partner in the Highways Partnership that maintains the County’s roads.

We know that the County Council has regular meetings with Tarmac to discuss their current mining activities and proposals for new ones in the County. We know that the County Council has undertaken at public expense technical investigations to help Tarmac with its application for the Bulcote Farm site – investigations that should be the financial responsibility of the applicant. We know that the Council has agreed to Tarmac’s request to keep secret certain proposals in connection with the ongoing Bulcote Farm planning application – contrary to rules about public access to all information on live applications. We know that reports made by the Council’s Environment Department to the Minerals Plan public inquiry and to Council Committees about Tarmac’s application have been “economical with the truth”. We know … well, lots of other things – all of which require detailed investigation.

That is the trouble with special relationships. You never know what fine messes they will get you into.

Bulcote Farm Planning Application - Latest news

Tarmac have failed to meet the deadline of 31 August 2006 set by the County Council’s Planning Committee for the resubmission of their planning application for an open-cast sand and gravel mine at Bulcote Farm. They have not withdrawn their application either. This means that the application will now be decided on the application submitted in July 2002.

A report will be prepared by the County’s Environment Department and will inevitably recommend that the Planning Committee refuse the application because, amongst other things, Tarmac has failed to:
   *   provide evidence that their proposals will not increase flooding risks or provide mitigation of additional flood risk
   *   include a method of mitigating the dewatering risks posed by an open cast mine so close to a substantial number of houses
   *   provide an assessment of the impact of the proposal on Bulcote Conservation Area
   *   remove a proposal for a sewage composting plan on the site, which is in the Green Belt where such activities are prohibited

On 30 August, the Evening Post reported a spokesperson for Tarmac saying that the company would be unable to meet the deadline. Our inquiries have shown that Tarmac have not been able to come up with any proposals to satisfy the Environment Agency on the major problems of flooding and dewatering that were researched, highlighted and pressed forward since 2002 by the three village residents groups – Gunthorpe Environmental and Flood Alleviation Group (GEFAG), Bulcote Conservation Trust (BCT) and BJRA. We also learned that Tarmac had asked for more time and officers were prepared to accede to their request – in spite of the Planning Committee’s decision to set a deadline. So we were particularly pleased to see the Evening Post reporting Neil Hunt, the council's minerals planning team leader, saying that if Tarmac missed the deadline he expected to proceed now according to the Planning Committee’s decision.

We expect to see Nottinghamshire County Council’s Planning Committee that meets on 8 September confirm this process and ask for a report on the application to be presented to the Committee at the meeting on 3 October.