About 100 people attended the very interesting and enlightening talk which generated many questions and concerns. Jillian stressed Josh’s project is purely about using land at Brackenhurst at the moment and that engineered mitigation is still being planned by Nottinghamshire County Council with Government Grant-in-Aid funding.
A scheme to hold back water in Springfield Dumble was begun in November 2016 at Nottingham Trent University’s (NTU) Brackenhurst campus. Dr Jillian Labadz and PhD student Josh Wells presented their research project in a talk at Southwell Library on 2nd February 2017.
This is the first upstream measure aiming to reduce the risk of future flooding in the town. They explained the environmental works and ongoing scientific monitoring. Josh also revealed some results from a questionnaire he sent to every household in town. Residents who responded were enthusiastic for Natural Flood management (NFM) schemes, which can be used in rural catchments together with more traditional engineered solutions in the urban area.
More potential schemes are now being explored with other land owners and £100,000 has been secured by the Trent Rivers Trust for further NFM projects for Southwell. After many questions from the audience, a cheque from Southwell Flood Fund for £2,000 was presented to NTU. This will pay for an electromagnetic flow meter. It is the first community contribution to flood management and together with four new water level monitors funded by the Environment Agency will increase our understanding of how water behaves in the streams around town.
