Water runs downhill

It was indeed a pleasure to read the reply by Councillor Ricky Bowers (Letters, August 9).

I have been writing to the planning department of Arun District Council for years on this subject without a single response, but it seems my last letter in your paper touched an exposed nerve end in the planning department.

Anyone living in the area knows we had a large amount of rain over a short period but we have had similar amounts of rain over shorter periods before site 6 was built on (2008 and 2009) for example, which did not cause the same amount of chaos as the recent episode.

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The reason that the drainage system on site 6 coped with the heavy rainfall was because the buildings site was raised by 18 inches with the consent of Arun Council instead of insisting on a dedicated surface water system.

Naturally the older drainage system was never designed to deal with the huge increase in surface water due to the run off from site 6.

These points have been raised many times before during meetings I have attended but never addressed by the council or its planning department.

It seems that we have a planning department reluctant to accept that water runs downhill.

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Councillors Bowers’ letter made it quite clear that the existing older drainage systems were never designed to cope with these types of events.

And how true that is local people have been saying that since the beginning of site 6.

Build on a flood plane and cover it with housing without insisting that a proper surface water drainage system is installed can only be described in my opinion as madness, or even criminal.

Houses are still being built on site 6 and the problem will only get worse, not better.

Alan Ambridge

West Meads Drive, Bognor Regis