{"id":5870,"date":"2023-11-17T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/?p=5870"},"modified":"2024-01-07T11:05:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T11:05:03","slug":"flood-action-team-float-autumn-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/flood-action-team-float-autumn-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Flood Action Team – FLOAT – Autumn 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the early hours of 18th September 2023<\/strong> an intense series of rain storms affected Ashby de la Zouch and the surrounding areas. The huge volume of water that fell quickly saturated open ground areas and began a rapid run off, through rain water gullies and drainage systems, into the Gilwiskaw Brook towards Packington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately for Packington, our brook cannot contain such flows, and we experience flooding. Even under normal circumstances, the Gilwiskaw Brook may break its bank on Mill Street between the watermill bridge and Hall Lane bridge. This overflow can block the road for a few hours before retreating back into the channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September however the rainfall was such that the volume of water was much greater than normal and as a result more than 15 homes were flooded<\/strong> as well as over 40 properties that were cut off <\/strong>due to their access being under flood waters. Packington Primary School itself was unable to open, being inaccessible to vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sarah Marvin’s kitchen view of Mill Street after the height of the 18 September 2023 floods<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This was extremely distressing for everyone affected. It has caused damage to property, loss of personal effects, and a huge amount of disruption as home and property owners began to clear up afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Packington Post has tried in the photo gallery below<\/strong> to illustrate flood waters and the affected areas – Mill Street and Brook Close are particularly badly hit, Heather Lane at its Junction with Mill Street also had houses 1 to 3 inundated in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hall Lane Bridge from Mill Street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mill Street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mill Street waters subsiding<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bridge St footbridg at South end of Mill Street
– one arch acts as a DAM not a bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The obstructed second arch on the Bridge Street road bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Brook Close<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Brook Close<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Not just Mill Street and Babelake St \/ Brook Close – Normanton Road seen here also floods at its junction with Heather Lane.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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How do I get to school?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mill Street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mill Street – the MIll is at bottom Right, the 3 cows are maroooned at mid Left<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Babelake Street looking North towards Mill Street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Even if your vehicle is Snorkel-equipped, GO SLOW because your bow-wave may wash away carefully-laid sandbags..<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Gilwiskaw Brook looking North from over the Mill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Babelake Street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FLOAT (Packington Flood Action Team)<\/strong> have been in regular contact with Leicestershire County Council , NWLDC and the environment agency to examine what the root causes of the more extreme flooding were. The examination of where flooding occurred during this event indicated that it was a combination of water coming out of the Gilwiskaw Brook, failure of culverts and ditches around the village, and the continual issue of emergency discharge from the sewage works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are now further investigations planned by LCC into what can be done to clear watercourses – the Environment agency have been tasked with improving the flood alert system to try and alter their current system to allow flood warnings to actually be sent before flooding happens \u2013 however this still hasn\u2019t been put in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday 20th October 2023 – storm Babet<\/strong> swept into the UK and once again Packington flooded. This time the water rose during daylight hours and so some preparation against floodwaters could be made by vulnerable households. The lowest lying homes in the village did still suffer significant flooding, roads through the village were impassable, and the school was once again cut off by the floodwaters.
The community really rallied around to check on neighbours and assist in getting sandbags to protect homes that were at threat of the rising water – and this was much appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately we did get a small number of \u2018thrill seekers\u2019 coming into the village in off-road vehicles with the intention of driving in the flood water \u2013 the standing advice from Fire & Resue services is that you should never enter flood waters either on foot or in any vehicle<\/strong> – from a safety aspect – manholes and drain covers can become dislodged by floods causing an unseen hazard, and from a practical point of view, vehicles moving through puddles or flood waters cause spray and push water into bow waves that then cause more issues for homes effected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what can we do as a community?<\/strong>
Please – Report all blocked drains and gullies to Leicestershire County Council Highways department.
– Report any roads that become impassable due to flooding (no matter for how short a period)
– Report any flooding to your property \u2013 include any integral or attached garages or outbuildings<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is only by continuing to report issue<\/strong>s will we get support from our local authorities in looking for ways to improve the current situation. Development and construction upstream of Packington are making our problems worse and for this there is no quick fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile watch out for any communications from FLOAT, we are planning to hold more open meetings to update people on any progress made, this includes having a structured village flood plan to alert and hopefully assist residents and vulnerable properties<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From an article in Issue 123 of Packington Post, November 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by village Flood Warden Sarah Marvin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh dear – Tuesday 2nd January 2024<\/strong> – floods again.. inundations shown below at Normanton Road junctions with Heather Lane; and Mill Street:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the early hours of 18th September 2023 an intense series of rain storms affected Ashby de la Zouch and the surrounding areas. The huge volume of water that fell quickly saturated open ground areas and began a rapid run off, through rain water gullies and drainage systems, into the Gilwiskaw Brook towards Packington. Unfortunately …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Flood Action Team – FLOAT – Autumn 2023’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flood","category-major-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5870"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5917,"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5870\/revisions\/5917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packington.info\/bloggle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}