Alconbury Brook Flood Group report for 20th January 2022

Since mid- December, (our brilliant) flood group volunteers have

• Done additional clearance in the brook near the Heritage Bridge in Alconbury

• Cleared 250m of undergrowth and brambles from banks near the ford in Alconbury Weston

• Removed 2 more trees which had fallen across the brook near Polecat Lane

• With the KP from the EA planted 750 trees at Grange Farm, Hammerton next to a new EA off-line storage pond. (41 volunteers!)

• Culverts on school lane have been rodded by volunteers and are running better. The CC who owns the ditch have been informed that one of the culverts may have collapsed.

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The EA completed most but not all of the bank maintenance in November. Those sections missed were discussed during a very helpful site visit with the EA Assets Manager  During the week starting 17/1 EA teams have undertaken a significant amount of additional bank clearance and will continue over the next 2 weeks providing the weather holds.

We have arranged to do some clearance ourselves which complements that done by the EA teams including the banks of riverside properties in the High Streets of both Alconbury and Alconbury Weston. This is scheduled for the second week in February. To facilitate this the flood group have ordered a boat.

We now have third party insurance, and our volunteers are insured against personal accident.

Another farmer has agreed to have an off-line storage pond, together with some leaky dams on an Alconbury Brook tributary watercourse. The idb have give outline agreement to the work which is on a watercourse under their jurisdiction.  We hope that funding and consents will become available so that work can be done in May/June.

Further upstream two flood group members had a preliminary meeting with another farmer who has given us permission to look around his farm for suitable places for some small holding structures on 26/1. We will be discussing funding with LENs.

We have had an update from the EA with detailed plans for an NFM system on the East side of Vinegar Hill. The is a slight delay while this is modelled but the project could be installed in late spring/summer 2022.

The EA modelling contract with Jacobs has finally been signed off and work has begun. At some point the consultant will visit the Alconbury’s to understand the lie of the land, and the opportunities which exist given the strong commitment from the communities involved.

Flood Group Newsletter 2, part funded by Alconbury Parish Council will be distributed between 17/1 and 26/1

An improved flood CCTV system will be operational soon. There remain some unanswered questions about fields of vision and distribution of passwords, but these should be resolved shortly.

It has been very dry, only 29mm of rain in the first three weeks of January, however we are certain that water in the brook is running away faster because of the better maintenance. Soil moisture varies but has been as low as 80% (our monitoring) in the last 2 weeks providing a small buffer for heavy rain. Long may it continue!! We now have portable flow monitoring equipment. On 18/1, the flow was about 0.1cubic meter/sec at the A ford and 0.095 cubic meters per second AW ford (in December 2020 the flow at Alconbury flyover was 94 cubic meters / second). The EA have invited the Flood Group to suggest two sites for permanent flow monitoring equipment.