JDMcDsblog

Extracts for River Study

1. The fields involved suffer flooding and drainage problems which have created problems in the Glen Avenue estate since it was built. Work to alleviate this is therefore required, and at the same time, the flood risk to other properties which have not been affected by such problems in the past must not be increased.

Response: A Flood Risk Assessment and Drainage Strategy was submitted by the applicant’s consulting engineer. This identified the existing problems and agreement has been reached between the Council’s Roads Services and the applicant on the extent of work required to alleviate them. A financial contribution of £30,000 will be provided by the applicant to enable the Council to undertake upgrading of the existing drainage system which has caused flooding in the past.

Roads Services (Flooding, Coast Protection & Quality Co-ordinator) – There is a long history of flooding of existing properties in the development on the opposite side of Brisbane Glen Road (Raillies Avenue and surrounding area). This is as a direct result of inadequate culvert systems provided by the developer of the estate (MacTaggart & Mickel). These culverts carry the small watercourses bounding the site and also surface water flow from the site to the Noddsdale Water. In addition, at least one uncharted culverted watercourse or main land drain is present in the site. Brisbane Glen Road also suffers from flooding.

A flood risk assessment (FRA) will therefore be required which should demonstrate that the site is not at risk from a 1 in 200-year flood event, i.e. a flood with a 0.5% chance of being equalled or exceeded in any year. Any assessment should also take account of the latest government advice on climate change and address the requirements in Annex B of the SEPA-Planning Authority Protocol ‘Development at Risk of Flooding: Advice and Consultation’.

A Drainage Assessment (DA) will also be required. As well as addressing any SUDS requirements, the DA should include an assessment of flow routing of surface water through the site when surface water systems are overloaded and this particular point should also be made a requirement of the planning consent.

Response: A draft FRA and DA have been submitted together with a drainage strategy prepared by the applicant’s consulting engineer.

A condition can be imposed to require final drainage design calculations for final approval by Roads Services prior to the commencement of the development.

It is intended that the drainage system serving the proposed housing development be designed to deal with the effects of surface water arising from the site even during extreme periods of rainfall, and to this end, an attenuation pond will be formed in the north western corner of the site (ie. the area with the lowest ground level). This pond will have a surface area of some 2,000 square metres, and will be fenced off with a 1.1 metre high fence and the surrounding area landscaped.

The attenuation pond will provide an area of storage for storm water (during periods of heavy rainfall, piped drainage systems become rapidly overloaded giving rise to flooding – an open pond enables storm water to be stored temporarily until the adjacent watercourse or drainage system can cope with the run-off). The proposed attenuation pond and associated surface water drainage systems will help to reduce the risk of flooding both on the site and downstream of the site.

With respect to the flooding problems which have persisted nearby for many years, which are understood to be caused by inadequate drainage systems in the earlier MacTaggart & Mickel development to the west of the site, the applicant has agreed to enter into a section 75 agreement which would involve a one off payment of £30,000 to the Council to help fund flood prevention works. When combined with the drainage and flood prevention works envisaged for the proposed development, these measures should greatly reduce flooding problems in this part of Largs.

Introduction to First Year OS map work

The idea of Scale:

[slideshare id=113377&doc=glasgow-at-increasing-scale4012&w=425]

View Larger Map

I have started to build up a Google Map to plot the location of blogs I read. By location I mean the place (eg school, office) where each blogger works, although of course in many ways blogs have no physical space at all, and concepts like location and distribution patterns are not valid in the usual geographical sense. Indeed there is a whole field of geography that needs to examine cyberpatterns and network links, but that’s for later.

Each placeholder on the map marks the place where a particular blogger works. the Balloon style pins are colour coded according the type of job:

Blue-teachers/support staff
Green-Local authority/LT Scotland staff/HMIe
Red-consultants
Yellow-further education

Map pins are used to locate establishments

Most placeholders have hyperlinks to the person’s blog-those that don’t will be added soon!

More sites will be added as I come across them.

The pattern right now is very interesting, with a major cluster in East Lothian, reflecting the huge amount of work being done there by Don Ledingham and his colleagues in all sectors of East Lothian. It’s worth noting outlying blogs away from the Central belt, eg Islay and the Borders. It shows the value of blogging in shrinking distances and enabling rural, more remote areas to be as equally engaged in the debate as those in the main centres of population.

Of course, this map is only as good as my personal reading and is likely to be vey biased,eg towards geography, or to East Lothian, who have embraced blogging and wikis more fully than any other authority. However as I read or stumble across other blogs I hope that the greater sample size will reduce bias and anolmalies.

I hope we can find a way of making this map collaborative, and let other bloggers amend entries or add placeholders of their own.

Click here for short cut

GeoWiki

Last session I started compiling a wiki, of revision pages for Geography at my previous school. I have now moved to a new post, but I intend to refine the existing pages and develop new resources. The idea is to provide some key evision notes, and set interactive learning tasks by embedding hyperlinks within the text, eg to Bitesize. I want to improve layout and standardise house style for fonts, spacing and the use of icons, so what follows in the button ibelow s very much work in progress.

Thursday 12th July

The government has awarded £40m to the British aerospace industry to research and develop “green” aviation engines with the aim of reducing the impact of flying on the environment.
The project, Environmentally Friendly Engine, is a £95m industrial collaboration, led by aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce, to design and test technologies for more fuel efficient engines with reduced noise, carbon and nitrogen emissions.