BACK IN THE OLD DAYS

Many thanks to Pauline Watkins at the Museum who found this old picture of West Street from years ago. Probably seventy years or more. Is that the famous Mr Packer sweeping the water away from his shop door What is that guy doing peering in the window Looking for people trapped by the floodwater Is the man unblocking the drains from the Council And what is that strange square frame standing on the pavement

Pauline has been doing some more research. "The wooden structure was for tying the shop awning/canopy to. The man who is trying to stop water from entering the cellar is apparently Mr G FMace and the cellar belonged to the Misses Edwards".

OH NO.........NOT AGAIN

Just a few weeks after the last storm the town was flooded in places again on 29th September. West Street is pictured on the left around 11am on Friday morning. Apparently Station Road was under two feet of water. Jewsons were closed and Central Tyres on Horsefair was flooded. After the last flood the Area Engineer came to town and said it was about cleaning out the drains. Well as everybody could see on Friday that hasn't happened or hasn't worked. The drains simply didn't function. The infrastructure of this town is crumbling and the local councils just go on overloading it with new developments. Taking the extra tax revenue and making no investment in increasing capacity of things like drains and sewers. How long can this go on for goodness sake

The Highways engineer writes to the Town Clerk...

Thank you for your email about flooding problems in Chipping Norton. I confirm we have started our investigation of the storm drains in this area to determine if there are any blockages in the existing system that contribute towards this persistent flooding. When I have completed my investigation I will let your Town Council know what we find and explain what action we propose to take to reduce the risk of further flooding. I can confirm that on Friday we completed the first stage of our investigation and as a result we have cleaned out any the gullies that appeared to be blocked and found several that may well have broken outlet pipes.We hope to repair these during September.

I also confirm that the responsibility for the storm water drainage system in Chipping Norton does not rest with one single authority. Although the gullies and their connections are the highway authoritys responsibility the larger pipes under the road may be the responsibility of Thames Water or possibly the adjacent land owners. However we will liaise with Thames Water during our investigations to establish what is causing the flooding and who is responsible for putting it right. We will liaise with Thames water regarding foul sewer overflowing and mixing with storm water but I cannot give an undertaking to survey the foul drainage system.

THAMES WATER PAY 40 COMPENSATION FOR THAT DAY WHEN THE WATER PACKED UP LAST OCTOBER