SRA Annual Report 2023-24: Other SRA-funded Resilient Infrastructure activities in 2023-24
Somerset Council’s Highways Department completed the installation of a new flood warning system for Lane End in Ham and Lipe Lane in Ruishton, funded by Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA). Both roads get busy with local traffic and motorists seeking to avoid delays on the A358 east of Taunton, and as both roads flood seasonally, cars quite often get abandoned and driven into ditches. To try to deter drivers from risking lives and vehicles, five variable-messaging digital signs can now be activated by sensors in rising flood waters. Local residents, Ruishton Parish Council, Ham Village Flood Defence Committee, and the SRA’s Community Engagement team all helped to develop this scheme.
In North Petherton, the SRA originally gave Sedgemoor District Council funding for an investigation into the causes of flooding affecting properties and the road in Baymead Lane. This study was expected to focus on a part of the Mill Stream culvert system known to be undersized. However, following flash flooding around North Petherton in summer 2021, it was decided to look at six other pinch-points as well. When Sedgemoor District Council ceased to exist in March 2023, this project passed over to the new Somerset Council. A final report was produced in 2023.
In March 2022, Somerset Rivers Authority agreed to part-fund a Somerset County Council Highways Department scheme for drainage improvements in the Wellsprings area of north Taunton. The main focus was to be on reducing the risks of flash flooding to homes, roads and Wessex Water infrastructure in Corkscrew Lane, Kingston Road, Wellsprings Road, and Longacre Close. This scheme has now passed over to the new Somerset Council. Designs and plans were drawn up in 2023-24, and works are expected by the end of March 2025.
A site appraisal was completed in November 2023 for a scheme to reduce flooding along Robins Lane in Burtle, which has a long history of problems caused by two undersized culverts and a dilapidated roadside ditch. This scheme emerged from a previous SRA-funded Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium programme of inspections of around 700 of the most vulnerable and strategically important culverts in the Somerset Levels and Moors. Following on from those inspections, work was also done to advance plans for improvements to culverts in Buttlake Road near Brent Knoll and Puriton Road in Mark.
Consultants WSP worked on an SRA-funded study commissioned by Somerset County Council (since April 2023 Somerset Council) to examine what effects a weir just downstream of the A38 at Blackbird Bends between Taunton and Wellington could be having on flooding problems along that stretch of very busy road.