Bridgwater will shortly be given its final opportunity to be consulted on the planned Bridgwater Tidal Barrier at its chosen location near Express Park. Did anyone really wonder why Bridgwater’s barrier, probably uniquely in the UK, is situated not at or close to the mouth of the River Parrett?
The reason is that in 100 years or so time it probably will be.
The start of the River Parrett will have moved to be at or just upstream of Dunball where the secondary flood defences meet the raised raised river bank.
The EA’s well concealed Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) intends over the next 100 years to return the Parrett Estuary to its original form. They intend to allow the sea to over-top the river banks spilling out over the existing farm land to ultimately form an inter tidal habitat stretching from the Steart to Dunball.
People have been told by EA that “river banks will be maintained” and imagine the EA intends to continue raising the river banks. That is not true; what it actually means is that the banks will stay at the preset level whilst sea levels continue to rise. Ultimately the sea will come over the top of the banks naturally generating the planned realignment of the Parrett and avoiding paying landowners compensation. Banks will only be raised locally and the impact can be seen on the recently released flood maps. This was known about before the September 2016 consultation but never presented. The EA’s repeated statement on protection is duplicitous at best and misleading at worse.
To compound the EA’s lack of transparency it seems to have lost its moral compass with regard to those less fortunate. Locally with nearly 2000 acres at Steart already lost to food production the EA’s SMP will see another 3000 acres lost to UK food production at time of growing food insecurity . As a country that cannot feed its self that lost acreage along with all the rest of land lost through Managed Realignment will have to be replaced overseas taking away food that could be used for famine relief and the less well off. It is the worst type of modern colonialism. It is a situation made all the worse by the fact that the UK’s aid fund may be trying to alleviate problems we are causing. Not much in the way of joined up government.
Serious questions need to be asked of the those County and District Councillors who seem to be on all the committees but do little to bring the EA to account and are prepared to promote the exploitation of other people’s land to avoid looking after our own.
Under present plans six years after the completion of the proposed Bridgwater Tidal Barrier Pawlett Hams will cease to be defended. That means that the river banks will no longer be maintained and the process of handing more farmland back to the sea will start again. The estuary will in time return to the state it was in more than 500 years ago before the levels were drained. According to the EA this will see 387 Ha or just under 1000 acres of farmland lost to food production and the local economy although only 47Ha is actually required to make up for coastline squeeze.
The Parrett Estuary Flood Risk Management Strategy (PEFRMS) is a document remarkable for its narrow vision that is more interested in extending the habitat for birds whilst completely failing to understand or chooses to stay silent on the impact of saltwater on agricultural land. The only economic impact considered seems to be tourism.
Parrett Flood Management Recommended Strategy
Section 2.1.6 (b) notes that
North Devon and Somerset Shoreline Management Plan (Hartland Point to Anchor Head), Halcrow, due 2010. We are concurring with their emerging policies.
As such much of the real detail is provided in the EA’s Shoreline Management Plan rather than the overarching Parrett Estuary Flood Management Strategy which is a long term plan to let down the flood defences along the River Parrett allowing the sea up to the edge of Chilton Trinity and trading off land in Sedgemoor for economic development elsewhere around the Severn Estuary. It is a step back in time with individual communities afforded long term term flood protection rather than comprehensive flood defence. The high level strategy for the PEFRMS is provided below following on is information from the shoreline management plan and recently available information for the preferential flooding of farmland as part of the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier Scheme.
Pawlett Hams Realignment is the complete loss of Pawlett Hams as can be seen from the key plan in the Parrett Estuary Flood Management Strategy and noted in item c above.
Applicable Shoreline Management Plan delivery of the Strategy that includes the loss of 387 Hectares (1000 Acres of land) at Pawlett Hams is reproduced below.
Parrett Estuary (Combwich to River Brue) Policies 7d38 to 7d42
Individual policies for various sections of the River Parrett and adjacent land are listed below. 7d39 is worth noting as it has the next major realignment of the flood defences after Pawlett Hams allowing the River Parrett to come up within 1000m of the village of Chilton Trinity.
South of the Parrett the EA ultimately proposed to let the marshes return to the very edge of Bridgwater whilst Sedgemoor District Council and the EA’s Bridgwater Barrier team have left a space at site 4 for a bridge that is on the way to a planned inter tidal area and represents the expansion of the Steart Peninsula scheme up to Bridgwater.
EA presentation Severn Estuary Forum 2017
Managed Realignment
the planned retreat of the existing flood defences
Policy 7d42 Flood defences from Dunball To the River BruePolicy 7d39 Combwich to Bridgwater (Parrett west) managed realignment.
Those two policies when implemented will along with Steart Marshes and the Bristol Ports land transform the Parrett Estuary. There will be no new link possible between West and East Somerset.
Future (long term) Inter tidal habitat – salt marsh and mud flats
Total agricultural land lost to agricultural will be around 5000 acres. There is a certain irony that the EA policies will in reducing UK agricultural land export food production abroad and potentially increase famine oversees.
In the short term the proposed secondary flood defences shown below are required because the EA will not keep raising the banks above the present levels. sea level rise will continue and the frequency of seawater flooding will increase. The route of the secondary flood defence is not dissimilar to the future managed realignment above.
Secondary Flood Banks based on Bridgwater Tidal Barrier at Site 5
The gap in the flood defences at Walpole still left open for floodwater to flood the area as it previously did in the 80’s
After the planned completion of the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier a 1:200 flood is expected by the designers to flood land to the north of Chilton Trinity with saltwater. The maps below represent some of the 50 maps prepared by the BTB designers to support the decision on location of the BTB barrier; the complete set of maps can be found on the SDC Strategic Flood Risk Assessment page.
The maps below show the impact of the river banks not being raised to match rising sea levels apart from the protected communities. The end result is the preferential flooding of farmland with saltwater during certain tide and storm conditions as presented during the Severn Estuary Forum 2017 held in Bridgwater.
None of this information was presented during the two EA/SDC public consultations in 2016.
2025 1:200 Flood Return
The map below shows one of breach locations modelled. A breach can occur anywhere, the map does not say its saline (salt) flood waters escaping from the river. They are merely designed to provide an idea of the likely consequence of it happening. The full pack of maps shows a number of breach locations and these are yet to published by Sedgemoor District Council.
River Bank fails at Dunball at land to the north of Chilton Trinity flooded
One of the maps produced by the designer showing the safety risks associated with their present scheme.
BRIDGWATER TIDAL BARRIER ; SITE 5; FLOOD HAZARD 1 :1000 YEAR FLOOD EVENT
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