Here’s a feature from the Independent on the lack of flooding in Pickering, North Yorkshire.
Although there are no pictures of Pickering (this one seems to be of Carlisle) that’s the point, the Independent says, as a range of preventative actions, mostly working with the grain of nature, resulted in no flooding in the town this winter.
The article illustrates what’s been done, mostly in the hills above the town, to hold back the considerable volume of water from speeding its way into the streets. Lessons for other places, says Lynn Truss, although others say that Pickering didn’t flood because there just wasn’t enough rain.
Hello. Thank you for covering Pickering and flooding. I am a geomorphologist and modeller, and one of the scientists who worked on the “Slowing the Flow at Pickering and Sinnington” project (the ‘STF’ project), and before that on the RELU community science “Knowledge Controversies” project, whose findings were crucial to the STF project being set up and funded.
There has been some controversy about whether the catchment got much rain over the period 24th-26th Dec., and whether the main bund (flood storage area) upstream of the town prevented it from flooding. Having spoken to a local resident who took photographs on Boxing Day of the town centre and up by the bund, and having myself visited the bund and seen the wrack lines on the downstream side of the culvert, and also the photographs of water already backing up behind the bund some 6 hours before the flood wave peaked coming down Pickering Beck, I have not the slightest doubt that the bund prevented Pickering from serious flooding on Boxing Day. Now it is quite fair to say that the catchment of Pickering Beck did not get nearly as much rain as did the communities of the West Riding, for example, but provisional figures suggest there was still a lot of rain over those two-three days, falling on ground that was already pretty wet. Reports appearing elsewhere on the web suggest in fact that in and around the Vale of Pickering, Christmas Day and Boxing Day were thoroughly wet and miserable, people reporting that they had not seen rain like it for a long while. Without the bund, I think it is fair to say that Pickering would have flooded, not as badly as York, or Leeds, or Tadcaster, I agree, but a flood is a flood when it comes into your house. Thus although the scheme at Pickering cannot protect against floods of the size that hit York or Leeds, at least the people of Pickering did get some protection on this occasion. Hope this is helpful to you and your readers. Kind regards, and thanks for your interest and coverage, Nick Odoni