Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

It's not happening here yet, but the Environment Agency maps of likely flood warnings makes sobering viewing. A flood alert was issued in Hertford this week as the river level was critical and some low-lying areas areas were under water. Yesterday roads were closed in some Hertfordshire towns. The Environment Agency has issued flood warnings for the River Lee from Lemsford to Ware, as well as the River Ash at The Hadhams and the River Beane in Walkern.

That's the River Lea (or Lee), the one that runs through Tottenham and Hackney. Check the map, and see for example that the whole of Tottenham Hale is in a priority flood warning area - that's all those new tower blocks and the station.  I remember being at a public meeting when the development was first mooted, and asking whether it wasn't all a bit close to the river. It's OK they said, they will be built to allow for that. I hope they remembered to do so.

This map should also be superimposed onto the Tottenham Area Action Plan. Will the developers have allowed for this, in their forthcoming land grab?  We must project forwards too, this new climate is not going away.

Tags for Forum Posts: climate change, environment agency, flood, river lea, river lee

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It has already happened. BBC London reported today;

London Fire Brigade (LFB) were called to Lower Hall Lane, in Chingford, just after 03:00 GMT after the nearby River Lea broke its banks following heavy rainfall. Chingford street flooding leaves residents stranded.

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January was England's wettest winter month in almost 250 years (!!) Reported widely; e.g. The Guardian

Will Chingford MP Iain Dunkin' Smith give us a song? "Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was ……flooded?? #@!"

Just a thought, but perhaps some of those areas of the map are shaded due to their proximity to reservoirs rather than the risk of fluvial flooding? A catastrophic reservoir failure would obviously cause significant flooding, for which the usual alerts would have to be made available to residents.

The rain it raineth on Muswell Hill

And goes just where it oughta

Down to Hornsey and Wood Green

Till Tottenham's fulla water?

Highgate's rain is Tottenham's pain!

And will probably continue to be so, I see the new Hornsey developments will keep the Moselle in a sewer pipe, rather than deculvert and flood proof it.

You've lost me, Grant.  How does deculverting part of an existing water channel make it flood proof?

It seems to me that most of the time a culverted water channel, although a very large pipe, mostly operates like any small stream of water flowing downhill. With the difference that air above the water isn't accessible by small children falling in. Nor by idiots dumping rubbish.

When the volume and flow temporarily increases the "pipe" can become, in effect, partially blocked - by water. So water could in some extreme circumstances overflow the open surfaces at one or both ends.

Have I got this wrong? To declare an interest, we have a culverted branch of the Moselle at the bottom of our garden.

I thought the idea is to allow extra water to overflow into parkland - as has been done at Lordship Rec.  Whereas if it's in a pipe there is only one way out, so it overflows at the entry points. 

Sure, if there's parkland to contain the overflow. And if there isn't?

My amateur understanding is also that a culvert which is full may overflow at the entry point. But possibly at the exit as well, because the culvert again becomes an open surface stream.

If you haven't already seen them, Pam, I suggest taking a look at the Council's background documents. For our area in Tottenham Hale these still contain an aspiration to deculvert some branches of the Moselle where it passes between residential streets. (Carbuncle Passage is one example.) This includes homes where there have been rear garden extensions, non-permeable surfacing; and infill development.

In our street a landlord has just applied to excavate a cellar.

Alan, enjoy the effluence of the affluent with luv from Claire and Joe.

I still think that Claire should come down from hill with her rubber plunger to Finsbury Park. The southernmost end of the road round the park floods regularly, creating a large pond and ending with mud.

I don't think its a plumbing problem at the moment: but its been a chronic problem after rainfall.

I suppose that for a concerted counter-action, we'll have to wait until one of Claire's Cabinet's concert-company customers complains.

Actually that has been sorted, if you mean the lake that used to form near the gates to Seven Sisters Rd. There was a post about it a few months back, I think Thames Water finally fixed whatever the problem was. I haven't been that way for a few days but was fine on Monday.

Tottenham Hale Station 1947

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