Our thoughts go out to the people of Yorkshire affected by flash flooding yesterday afternoon and overnight.

The National Flood Forum is available to help out people in England affected by flooding.

Feel free to send Freuchie Flood Action Group a message if you have a query that is going unanswered elsewhere.

News Resources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-14396998
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14399448
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/flash-floods-force-evacuations-16032119.html
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Floods-hit-East-Yorkshire-homes-torrential-rain/story-13067523-detail/story.html

Back in October 2009 we posted a warning about insurance renewals – you can find the blog post here. To summarise we warned of the need to declare to your insurance company the proximity of your property to a watercourse.

A Freuchie resident contacted us recently with a concerning story about their latest insurance renewal.

We live in Green Tree Brae but were not flooded last time. As we live at the top of the Brae, it is unlikely that we would ever flood, however – last month I received a renewal letter from the current Insurer, the PO, saying that our premium was going to increase from £292 to £700+. The insurer explained this was due to premiums going up and the majority of underwriters no longer insuring homes within 200m of a watercourse. I have always declared that we live near the burn as I know that otherwise your policy becomes void. I then spent days calling 30+ Insurers – none of which would even quote me until finally AXA agreed a price for us. It struck me that a huge % of Freuchie must be within 200m of a watercourse but would not have declared it to their Insurers and therefore many residents will not actually be covered by their Insurers. All a bit scarey heh?

In a further email the resident was concerned for other residents who may unknowingly or otherwise be failing to declare the fact they are close to a watercourse thereby making their policy invalid.

It isn’t just if you get flooded when the policies become invalid – it’s any policy and any claim at all that becomes invalid if you haven’t declared in advance that you live within 200m of a watercourse,  even if you claim for an iron burn on the carpet – you wouldn’t get anything! So basically people are paying for policies for no reason!

Everyone in the main village is most certainly within 200m of a watercourse, which by definition includes drainage ditches. By failing to declare your proximity to a watercourse you will be providing your insurer with a good reason to cancel your policy, keep your premiums and fail to pay out on any claim, of any type, you may have submitted. As the concerned resident has said, “… basically people are paying for policies for no reason!”

Thank you to the resident for sharing their story with us and providing permission for us to share it with you. Other residents experiencing issues with insurance renewals can get in contact with FFAG for advice and assistance.

The Freuchie Flood Action Group website has been moved onto a new more powerful server. Please let us know if you spot any issues.

Freuchie Flood Action Group was contacted last week by a potential house buyer looking for information on a property in Freuchie. They found this website while doing some routine research on the web – good to know we’re so prominent! It would be inappropriate to discuss our advice or conversations with this individual but we can take a look at the wider topic of purchasing property in Freuchie.

A minority of properties have actually been flooded in Freuchie over the last few years. However there are a significant number of other properties at risk from future flood events. FFAG is one of the best placed organisations to provide advice to existing and potential properties owners on the flood risk at any particular property.

Property buyers should asks for a survey that will consider any past flooding and the existing flood risk. Solicitors should also be made aware of the need to search out past flood incidents and flood risk information. Ensure you put everything in writing, obtain proof of delivery and request an acknowledgment of your request, for there may come a time when you need to look at legal redress if it turns out they have been negligent or provided bad advice.

Please contact FFAG if you require further information.

As so many people live in Facebook, Freuchie Flood Action Group now has a Facebook page for convenience and to be used as an aid in our ongoing campaign to prevent the future flooding of Freuchie.

You’ll find the Facebook fanbox at the top of the right hand sidebar on this blog.

Update
The eagle eyed amongst you may notice the Facebook fan count is one higher than the number of account avatars or there is a double avatar for one of the fans. This is a bug in the Facebook system. Discussions with another software developer has led us to conclude it would be nigh impossible to get Facebook to recognise and fix this bug! As this isn’t a show stopper we’ll not bother trying to report it to them for it to end up being ignored.

Update 2 
The Facebook fanbox widget was too problematic and was slowing down the blog webpage loading so it has been disabled. A "Find Us on FaceBook" button has been put in place instead. Please use this button to find our Facebook page and then click on the "Like" link.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Flood Action Group

Freuchie Flood Action Group would like to say a hearty thank you to Ewen Jardine for his advice, assistance and sheer hard work in relation to flooding over the last few years. As secretary of Freuchie Community Council his support was vital to FFAG and Freuchie residents in our efforts to deal with flooding and the many issues that impact upon flood risk.

Unfortunately Ewen did not put himself forward for re-election at the recent community council elections – a loss for Freuchie. However Ewen will still be kicking around Freuchie as he is still very active with other community groups in the village.

Our best wishes go to Ewen with all his current and future projects.

Technorati Tags: Ewen Jardine, FFAG, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Flood Action Group

The last few remaining issues were cleared out of the way at the monthly Freuchie Community Council meeting this week, which allows the green light to be given for the installation of the replacement foot bridge. The bridge will come complete with an automatic flood barrier to help prevent future flooding of homes at Green Tree Brae.

We must thank everyone involved for being so patient whilst the community, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Flood Action Group and Fife Council worked through the long list of issues.

We’ll keep you informed on the project progress over the coming weeks and months.

Technorati Tags: Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Flood Action Group, Fife Council, Green Tree Brae

It has been two years since the flooding of various properties throughout Freuchie. Happily we’re not aware of any further major property damage caused by flooding over that period. However we did have the near miss event last year which threatened homes in Albany Crescent and Freuchie Mill.

We cannot be complacent in our campaign to bring flood prevention measures to Freuchie! Both Freuchie Flood Action Group and Freuchie Community Council are lobbying and working hard to make that happen. Our joint campaigning has already delivered some smaller measures to reduce flood risk, other measures are in the planning phase and we have a wish list of must happen sooner rather than later projects.

Technorati Tags: flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Flood Action Group

Freuchie Flood Action Group has just received video footage taken during the flood event in the early hours of the 13th August 2008.

Yet more graphic proof of why Kingdom Housing Association and the developers must ensure they get the flood prevention implementation correct on this site.

This new content will be sent off to Fife Council Development Services, Kingdom Housing Association and SEPA.

If you have trouble viewing the video try going directly to the video hosting website.

Technorati Tags: Fife Council, Fife Council Development Services, flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Flood Action Group, Kingdom Housing Association, SEPA

A follow-up letter from SEPA has maintained their objection to the proposed development at Broomfield Place.

To quote from their letter:

Thank you for your consultation letter of 5 July 2010. We maintain our objection to this planning application on the grounds of a lack of information in relation to flood risk. We will remove this objection if the issues detailed in Section 1 below are adequately addressed. However, it should be noted that an adequate solution to the flood risk issues at this site is likely to be difficult to achieve.

Advice for the planning authority

1. Flood risk

1.1 We maintain our objection to the proposed development on the grounds that it may place buildings and persons at flood risk contrary to Scottish Planning Policy and Planning Advice Note (PAN) 69 ‘Planning and Building Standards Advice on Flooding’.

 

1.2 In the event that the planning authority proposes to grant planning permission contrary to this advice on flood risk the application must be notified to the Scottish Ministers as per The Town and Country Planning (Notification of Applications) (Scotland) Direction 2009.

 

1.3 In previous correspondence dated 10 May 2010, we objected to this proposal and recommended that a flood risk assessment (FRA) be undertaken. An FRA carried out by McGregor McMahon has since been submitted and we can advise that on the 7 July 2010, SEPA met with McGregor McMahon to discuss the content of this in more detail.

 

1.4 The FRA clearly highlights that the site is at risk from flooding. A small watercourse which enters a culvert on Muir Road has in the past surcharged resulting in flood water flowing along Muir Road and down into Broomfield Place resulting in a number of houses being subjected to flooding. Within appendix F of the FRA, a number of photographs show the extent of flooding experienced in August 2008. This flood water derived from the upstream culvert eventually flows into the development site.

 

1.5 To mitigate this risk and to try and eliminate the flooding problems experienced by the existing properties on Muir Road and Broomfield Place, it is proposed to create a flood relief channel to the south of the site. The purpose of this channel is to capture any surcharged water from the culvert on Muir Road which would normally affect the above properties and proposed development site and divert it to an alternative watercourse to the east. Although this will decrease the risk of flooding to the developments on Broomfield Place and Muir Road, it will ultimately increase the risk of flooding to alternative areas, particularly the Freuchie Mill area which was severely affected by flooding in August 2008.

 

1.6 The proposal is therefore contrary to SPP as it will increase the risk of flooding to other areas. This was highlighted in our meeting with McGregor McMahon on 7 July 2010.

 

1.7 In light of the above, we maintain our objection to this proposal in relation to flood risk. We could only support the development if an alternative solution is proposed demonstrating that the development is located outwith the risk of flooding from the estimated 1 in 200 year flood event and will not increase the risk of flooding to neighbouring areas.

This advice is given without prejudice to any decision made on elements of the proposal regulated by us, which may take into account factors not considered at the planning stage.

It is heartening to see SEPA coming to the same conclusion as FFAG.

Read SEPA’s full response on the planning website:
http://planning.fife.gov.uk/online/caseFile.do?category=application&caseNo=10/00587/FULL

Technorati Tags: Broomfield Place, FFAG, flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Flood Action Group