Dear Trader.

It seems like an age ago that I last wrote reporting on what was happening with the river post flooding.

Since then the sun has been shining and Prince Charles has been to boost morale but you the Trader have not been forgotten. There has been a relentless exchange of emails with the agencies involved on your behalf mainly from Simon Tattersall, Charles Tippet’s landlord.

Last week the EA sent me the official 40 page + annexes report on last December’s flooding. If you would like to see it I can forward a copy to you.

In a nutshell “last December had the largest flood flow since at least 1894 and has been assessed as having a 1 in 250 chance of occurring in any one year”. There are however areas of uncertainty in the report as to the flows of water and even after talking to the EA last week there was uncertainty in some of the Hydraulic models used to design the new defence programme as there are so many variables. That’s nature for you.

So just to be on the safe side and “to give greater confidence that the scheme is providing the 1 in 100 standard of protection it was designed for” the EA are proposing to raise a number of banks that topped (overflowed) at the last flood. This work is at present being priced by contractors but is estimated to cost approx £70K with the work behind Caen School planned to be carried out in the summer holidays.

I am pleased we have got some positive action from the EA. I am not convinced it is the complete answer for the river but then I am not the expert and there is no money for any other scheme.

Drains

Going back to the multiagency meetings I asked the Parish to call back in January, there has been progress on the Caen Street drainage.

Everybody now knows it was not blocked drains in Caen Street but was the under-capacity and inadequacy of the drainage system that is the problem. This was due to the fact that possibly 200 years ago the river ran through Caen School and across Caen Street and on through the car park hence this is why the level is so low in Caen Street. Drains were last upgraded in approx 1964. At that time with the railway line and station in the way there was nowhere else to put the drain outlet other than almost up hill to the river. There is now great scope to run a drain under the car park and into the river lower down that will give both better storage and good run off.

Devon County Highways are working with the EA to find a suitable outlet into the river as well as doing a lot of survey work themselves to draw up a plan to price a new system.

Of the 21 floods over the last 110 years the EA tell us that only 5 are due to the river flooding over and all the rest are due to surface water problems, for example flash rain storms.

So with this information we will be seeing what Highways do about this problem as the EA have discussed it with them.

OTHER ISSUES.

I hope that you have all benefited from extra trade with the car park barrier height restrictions down. If you have can you please justify it by telling Braunton Parish Council in a letter or email as they are only down for a trial period until October 2013. You will soon be shouting if they go back up overnight.

Also, car park permits are coming up for review any time now. As there were only 7 sold last year it cost more to administer than it did in revenue so the Parish have a number of options. So whilst we were opposed to them if you can’t beat them join them I say and one of the options could be to sell them to village traders. It would be much easier for you to have one payment a year in your accounts rather than lots of tickets and having to find change every day. It would mean you parking in the overflow but that would free up spaces for your customers to park closer to your shops.

Again if you want it or think it’s a good idea then tell the Parish or tell me but I must have some justification to lobby councillors.

To clear up.

The Parish Emergency plan is taking shape so it is really important to keep your details up-to-date (with me for the moment).

If any of you have up-to-date figures on your insurance claims etc etc please let me know as we are still looking for a total claim.

Whilst I have got the title of River Warden I cannot comment or remark on behalf of the Parish Council. Anything I write in a Trader update is as Trader Concerns Coordinator.

If you have anything to raise PLEASE let me know and I will help with it where possible as well as keeping you in touch with the river and drainage developments.

Have a good trading season.

Ben Byrom.   westxgarage@btconnect.com