| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Concerns Over Water Contamination in Lammas Park and Council's Response | |
| Posted by: | Simon Hayes | |
| Date/Time: | 14/05/25 17:00:00 |
| Ah yes, the truth…. …..I wonder if those here who have shown themselves to be ardent advocates for this scheme with their posts on this forum and elsewhere can really handle the truth. The council didn’t get ‘feedback from residents’. It had to pause the work because what was being done was not covered by the existing planning consent. There was no legal way of completing the work properly until thet consent was granted. It failed to carry out a flood risk assessment or any health and safety assessment prior to work commencing. A RoSPA report was filed in February that was less than complimentary about the works. The council has fudged its legal responsibility here, since the size, depth and location of the basins creates what RoSPA describes as a usual level of risk being close to a children’s playground. The mitigation measures proposed are woefully inadequate, but being the bare minimum have been embraced by the council. There was no planning consent for the drainage works out in to the north of the parks couple of years ago. The council has consistently stated that there are 2,700 properties at risk of flooding, yet an FoI response from it in February put the figure at just 181. No explanation of where the higher figure comes from, but then alarming people with big numbers is par for the course with LBE. The water in the top drainage area was contaminated with eColi. Whether that’s been remedied is anyone’s guess. Anything nasty in that pond will eventually wash down into the new ponds. There remains no credible justification for the scale of the works. Any ‘flooding’ previously in the park wasn’t extensive and certainly didn’t endanger life or property. Rather they were large puddles at the bottom end of the park, which as any regular visitor there knows drained away quickly. That is the actual purpose of the park in wet weather, acting as a flood plain. There was never any danger of huge volumes of water gushing into Northfields Avenue or the mighty Radbourne stream bursting its banks and inundating roads to the south of Little Ealing Lane. It’s all a con. The real purpose behind this, as others have frequently pointed out, is to enable further massive development on the Uxbridge Road and Ealing Broadway. Already identified as prime locations for high density housing (ie very tall tower blocks) the Lammas SuDs save Thames Water having to expensively maintain and replace ageing Victorian sewers. Better to let the mucky water sit stagnating in some deep ponds in a popular local park. The ultimate irony is that the residents of these new towers won’t have access to lovely gardens in their concrete hovels, but planning parlance encourages them to use the adjacent parks for leisure and recreation. |