25/07/2008 - Flooding: The Trent left bank scheme
The £52m Nottingham Trent left bank flood alleviation scheme will protect more than 20,000 properties in Nottingham, Colwick, Netherfield, Attenborough, Dunkirk, Beeston Rylands, Long Eaton and Sawley - the largest concentration of properties at risk from river flooding in the UK.
Recently improved defences already protect West Bridgford, Wilford and Barton-in-Fabis. Another proposed scheme expected to start later this year would also protect Burton Joyce.
But the Greater Nottingham Strategic Flood Risk Assessment says the new defences would have no effect against one-in-1,000-year floods. And it highlights what would happen if the existing and proposed defences were breached.
For the first time, the report creates a map of flood hazards for Greater Nottingham - showing which areas would be affected by extreme, significant, moderate or low hazards if the defences were breached.
According to the Environment Agency, extreme hazard areas would face deep waters causing a threat to life from currents and debris. Maps show this would be largely in the flood plain areas, although some residential parts of Long Eaton, West Bridgford, Beeston and Wilford would be affected in the event of these rare breaches.
However, a much larger residential area could be affected by the "significant" hazard, including Long Eaton, Beeston, Beeston Rylands, Lenton, Wilford, West Bridgford, Colwick and The Meadows.
Maps have also been created looking at the depth of floodwaters if the defences are breached.
The deepest areas - of up to 3.5 metres - are within the flood plain. But some residential parts of West Bridgford and Wilford - including the area around Emmanuel School - could be affected by depths of almost three metres.
Other areas affected include Beeston Rylands, The Meadows, and Lenton (all up to one metre), and other parts of West Bridgford (up to 0.9m) and Colwick (up to 0.7m).
And maps looking at the effects of climate change, with and without the proposed left bank flood alleviation scheme in place, show that large areas of greater Nottingham will still face the threat of flooding because of an expected 20% increase in water volumes in the one-in-100-year risk.
Nottingham Forest and Notts County football clubs will also face flood threats. If the proposed flood defences were not installed, both clubs would be at a one-in-100-year risk.
But after the defences are installed, the City Ground would be downgraded to a one-in-1,000-year risk.