Flooding in East Yorkshire
I’ve just been watching the flash floods in East Yorkshire and there is more here on the BBC web site.
It looked like a modern housing estate was flooded. Was it built on a flood plain as many are? If so surely, the stupid council, who gave planning permission, should pay for the damage. And what about the architect, who created beautiful brick car parking spaces that just prevent the water soaking into the ground and just channel it into the houses.
These little boxes should never be built without a proper flood assessment. After this, they’re probably uninsureable anyway.
In the same report on the web, it says that a Tesco in York had to close because the roof started to leak. If it had been a green roof with perhaps grass on it, the problem might not have happened. If Adnams can do it in silly Suffolk, surely everyone can. Here are the reasons for a green roof from the design brief.
To reduce the visual impact of the building.
To reduce heat transfer into the building and to regulate the buildings core temperature.
To reduce water run-off and burden on drainage.
That all seems logical to me.
The roof incidentally was built by Sky Garden Greenroofs. I wonder how many Tescos and other supermarkets have green roofs? I think in the UK, one Co-op does.
The Anonymous Widower 
I was in York the day before the flooding and the weather was glorious.
I lived in York in the 1960s and it flooded every year. The problem is the River Ouse that cannot take the volume of water that falls with heavy rain.
Parts of East Yorkshire are very flat and very high rain levels as seen yesterday are fairly rare.
Adnams only used a green roof to get the planning consent for a building in the countryside. In have friends who live nearby. The problem with a green roof is the capital cost of the structure to take the weight of the soil, the planting, and the water it holds during heavy rain. Companies are obliged (by law) to operate in the interests of their shareholders, and so green roofs only get used where there is business case, or the company is privately owned and the shareholders take the view that a green roof is what they want (as I would).
Comment by John Wright | August 4, 2011 |
As I said in Yorkshire, the houses shouldn’t have been built on the flood plain, as everybody knows it floods.
Incidentally, I’ve been doing a bit of research and some green roofs are very cost effective, as they are actually designed as light weight structures. But the three points about the Adnams roof apply to all designs.
Did you see town last week, where Tesco were foced to have a roof that blended into the town in Ludlow.
Comment by AnonW | August 4, 2011 |
Much of the area around Thorne…is peat…and with the extraction…not good.
Last nights floods..hopefully were a one off…
York has flooded for centuries…so its perhaps a bit late to cancel building the place…but could do something about the river and the silt/sludge/debris in the river…not just for the Ouse…
In Sheffield…the flood prevention scheme has been changed…and some posh flats built …may now be vulnerable..may be once in 100 years.
The centre of Sheffield…has flooded ..twice that I know about…1864…(go and read about that one for your self….264 people killed…) and 2007. Once was a natural event..the other….(and if you are really smart….you will know which book the flood features as part of the story….).
Janet
Comment by Janet | August 4, 2011 |