Geoff Raw

Chief Executive

Brighton & Hove City Council

           

Date:

Phone:

e-mail:

9th September 2020

01273 291996

lee.wares@brighton-hove.gov.uk

 

Dear Geoff,

 

SCAPE PROJECT CARDEN AVENUE

 

I am submitting the following letter under Council Procedure Rule 23.3 to be included on the agenda for the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee (ETS) meeting of 29th September 2020.

For nearly several years the SCAPE project proposed for Carden Avenue has been in the planning and is now finally underway. This scheme is an experiment to see if measures to capture surface water will assist mitigate the impacts of flooding “down-stream” of the project area.

Very early on I raised a problem that surface water coming down the road and pavement above the project location will, after the SCAPE work, still occur. That water will still continue to flood the properties directly behind and adjacent to the SCAPE works.

The SCAPE project team advise they do not have the funds to resolve this issue and the highways team whilst understanding the problem, have yet to confirm they will deal with it. It should be noted that several years ago some drainage was laid to deal with the issue but that has been unsuccessful.

If this matter is not dealt with, there will be the rather embarrassing scenario for the council that properties that share the same frontage as the SCAPE project designed to mitigate flooding to properties, will still be flooded. That will undermine the SCAPE project’s ability to claim any success, to be able to judge the impact, probably fail to satisfy the funding conditions and leave residents, quite rightly, wondering what SCAPE was all about, and why the council only did half a job wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds in the process.

Please could you therefore instruct officers to urgently design a solution in collaboration with the SCAPE project team and implement the same whilst the SCAPE project works are being undertaken.

I appreciate that this request requires urgency but as I have said, this was raised at the inception of the project and has been raised many times since over the years but as yet, it appears nothing is proposed.

Many thanks and kind regards,

Cllr. Lee Wares