Save The Stour, Colne and Blackwater

The conservation of one of East Anglia's most striking landscapes

It seems fantastic to consider that the valleys of the Stour, Colne and Blackwater, landscapes that everyone agrees must be pre­served at all costs, is under threat from sev­eral quar­ters. Dev­elo­pers are mov­ing in, the air tra­ffic for Stan­stead is stacked over­head, and the man­age­ment of the rivers themselves is under threat.

The latest threat is from the En­vir­on­ment Ag­ency, who have just dropp­ed the level of the River Stour. Acc­ording to in­siders, the En­vir­on­ment Agency has been pressured to put more resources into coastal defences. In order to free up resources from the traditional role of managing the drainage and en­vi­ron­ment in the three river valleys, they are using the excuse of a 'Hea­lth and Safe­ty' rep­ort on the sluice gates to try to with­draw from their sta­tutory res­pons­ib­ili­ties.

This website is designed to try to coordinate the groundswell of opinion from fishermen, walkers, riparian owners, environmentalists, conservationists and anyone else who believes in the importance of maintaining and preserving the area.

this site is currently being maintained by Andrew Clarke, Pentlow Mill, Cavendish, Suffolk CO10 7SP 01787 281072. Andrew@MarshalClarke.com, on behalf of The SaveTheStour group.

The Threats

Building on the Flood Plain

The first housing estate that is deliberately built on an area that floods has just been completed at 'Bakers Mill' in Cornard. The houses there are 'small-footprint' houses, having a garage underneath. The new idea is that, if the land floods, only the garage gets wet, and the occupants contentedly wander off on high 'catwalks' to dry land. This takes no account of the fact that, when the land floods, a layer of raw sewage from flooded sewage works, and fine mud, is deposited, especially where the water is still. One wonders if the owners' cars will be insurable after the first flood, and the underwrites get wise to the tricks of the developers. Postcode anathema. The trick has been tried before in various parts of the country but the idea quickly became unpopular, and property prices in such houses has been static. However, with the intense pressure on building in East Anglia, what hope have we to preserve the Stour's water-meadows?

Jets overhead.

The jets waiting to land at Stansted, and taking off from Stansted, are no longer being stacked over the farmland, but over the Stour valley, particularly over Cavendish, Long Melford and Sudbury. This is a deliberate policy by traffic control. These jets are not allowed to wander far from the position they are allotted. The noise can be startling and at night, when lights are busiest, the sky is lit up by the planes sweeping overhead.

The Environment Agency

Riparian owners have noticed a deterioration in the way that the Stour is maintained. One of the lessons of the catastrophic floods of September 1968 was the fact that the river needs active work to maintain the drainage. Now the workforce is diminishing every year whilst workers are diverted to other work such as conservation and coastline erosion. The result will be another catastrophic flood, in which water will once more run through the shops in Haverhill High street and through the houses of Ballingdon. The situation is now more perilous, because of the huge developments in Haverhill, in which runoff from roofs and concrete discharge straight into the river to make it much more volatile in its behaviour.

The Sluice-Gate issue

The River Stour is about to change its character completely. This is apparently due to a massive over-reaction by the Health and Safety inspector to an accident at work. As a result, the Environment Agency are to relinquish their responsibilities for the management and maintenance of the water-levels of the River Stour for the foreseeable future.

The sluice gates on the River Stour, which, since time immemorial, have maintained the levels on the Stour, and which have acted to prevent flooding in times of heavy rain, are to be 'locked' so that they can no longer be used. Most of these gates are to be locked in the 'Up' position, meaning that the rivers will be at a low level.-until the floods come that is...

There will be two immediate consequences, Environmental and Flooding.

Firstly, the flooding problem

Some of the floodgates will be locked in the 'down' position. Whenever there is heavy rainfall, the tried and tested technique is to open every gate as soon as possible, from the lower part of the Stour upwards, to maximise the flow and drain the water out of the river before the consequential floodwater hits the river. This makes a small but vital difference to the flood levels. Any change in this method of flood-prevention will have the consequence of flooding, damage to property, and misery on a large scale. This is not just a matter for a few riverside dwellings: In September 1968, the water ran through the houses at Ballingdon, and residents had to take refuge upstairs. The worst flood got as far as All Saints Church in Sudbury. There are wide areas of Cavendish Ballingdon, Cornard and Long Melford that are at risk of flooding and any increase in that risk would be highly unfortunate. In that flood, the inundation of several houses in Cavendish was blamed on the failure to raise the gates at Pentlow Mill quickly enough.

Secondly, the Environmental problems

The river is the habitat of a large number of plants and animals, which rely on the continuation of current river levels. If the sluice gates are raised, their habitats will suffer and so, in turn, will they. Willows Poplars and Alders in particular are extremely sensitive to long-term changes in the river levels, and the birds, mammals and insects that exist only on the river edges will take a hit in their population. How much of a hit? We don't know as this has never been tried before, but one needs little imagination to guess. Even if there were no consequences to the water margins, the consequences to fish stocks is likely to be considerable.

There will be other problems, such as the recreational and agricultural ones, which need to be considered too.

About three years ago, there was an unfortunate accident to one of the staff of the environment agency whilst working a sluice gate at Nayland. Mercifully he was not permanently disabled, but it could have been worse. As a delayed reaction from this incident, which appears to be the first ever such accident, the Health and Safety experts have condemned the hand-operated sluice gates as being a hazard. I have worked such a gate myself for twenty years in all weathers, and can say with authority that this is bunkum. Nevertheless, the Environment Agency have felt compelled to react by placing all such gates (almost all) out of bounds to their staff.

This matter is unlikely to be resolved for some years. Most of these gates are, by some bizarre quirk, still privately owned as they date back to the commercial use of water-mills. Even with generous government funding, it would be difficult for the Environment Agency to convert these gates to modern safety standards, as they don't own them.

In the meantime, the water companies are planning to pump much more water down the Stour than ever before in order to accommodate the huge number of 'Prescott Homes' that are being built in Essex. The Colne and Stour are to become conduits for water to fill the reservoirs at the mouth of the Stour and Colne. This is going to put an extra strain on the spillways and sluices that maintain the level. It is obvious that this scheme will have to be put on hold until the problems with the gates is resolved.

The management of the river is a considerable part of the work of the Environment Agency. It is not the most exciting or high-profile work, but is essential. It seems unprecedented that such a statutory body can relinquish their responsibilities, yet retain staff funding and facilities allocated to them to do the work. Besides, it is a strategy fraught with far worse hazards to human life than that imagined by the Health and Safety officer responsible for the crisis in the first place. The river has had artificial levels since Roman times, and has always been managed. There is no 'laissez-faire' solution.

Posted by Andrew Clarke to SaveTheStour 20th Oct 2006

Whether the Health and Safety issue is serendipity on the part of the EA, or a bizarre synchronicity, it certainly coincides with a plan to permanently cease operating or maintaining some of the gates of the Essex Rivers, and a plan for a demand, by the Environment Agency, for complete ownership of all the rest of the sluice gates before they 'bring them up to modern safety standards'

The Environment Agency are currently reviewing the 'need' to maintain Mill leats and the associated structures in order to save money. I quote from a recent letter by Paul Woodcock, the regional Director …

'We are reviewing the long term need for all water level management structures, not only for flood management purposes, but also for ecological, recreation and navigation purposes. Based on this review we will determine how we manage the river into the future, and which structures will be required in order to permit such management.'

This appears to be a cost-saving exercise in the light of reduced DEFRA funding

'We will continue to use our allocated budgets responsibly in order to deliver the best possible river management for both people and the environment. Any decision to permanently cease operating or maintaining a structure will be made with due regard to all our obligations. '

Those of us who are most closely affected by the Health and Safety 'scare', and the planned abandonment of some mill 'structures', had to discover about them in the local press. There has been no consultation with any of the effected parties, as far as we are aware. Certainly, the Colne-Stour Countryside Association had not even been informed of these plans

Posted by Andrew Clarke to SaveTheStour 7th Jan 2007