Today I met residents of Vale Avenue along with the County highways drainage engineer so that we could discuss what happened to this area during the floods on 20th July. We followed the line of Pill ditch from Mary Green at the back of Millbrook Square right up Vale Avenue, over Kingcup Green to where the original line of the ditch goes out onto the A338.
It was useful to share views and concerns and learn about the history of this area in the past, where the brook regularly flooded the water meadows (by Bosleys' Orchard). This meant the silt fertilised the grass to make it ideal grazing land for the cattle and the old Saxon Pill Ditch used to carry the excess water away. It seemed that the water decided to follow its old route during the flood and consequently used the road to find its way. We are hoping that improved drainage will alleviate this problem in the future.
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Cllr Zoe Patrick,
ReplyDeleteIn response to your article in the September issue of the Grove Parish News Letter regarding the flooding to Grove on the 20th July I would like to comment as follows.
On that day it took me some 3hrs to get home from Abingdon as our house was just about to be deluged by the worse downfall of rain that any of us have seen in while, it was lucky the rain finaly stopped and we were glad that we were not flooded in the end.
You expressed that the situation was made worse by "drivers ploughing through at great speeds", I would just like to point out as a matter of fact as I was in Denchworth Road area with my children for about and hour that evening, it was certainly made worse by drivers ploughing through at great speeds, and it obviously doesn't matter that in the hour that I was down their I only saw 1 vehicle wadding though the deluge, and it happened to be one of the residents. This "local" (to the area in question) resident did not just drive through once but in the time I was their, he drove though 10 times in his 4x4, "and no he wasn't moving furniture".
John