Update November

I attended last week Newcastle Great Advisory Committee meeting at the last minute. After the meeting I met with an officer from Newcastle City Council and he was willing to organise a start-up meeting regarding the Newcastle Great Park pond management. This will take place on Friday, where officers from the Environment Agency, Newcastle City Council, Newcastle Great Park and hopefully Northumbrian Water will sit around the table and agree to a way forward! Let's not get carried away...
Anyway, apart from this meeting, I am working on applying to funding to do some physical works in the Ouseburn catchment, this will undoubtedly prove difficult but I am determined to get through it. I will let you know here on my progress.
Sebastien

May 2008 OCSG meeting minutes

Here are the minutes from the May 2008 meeting. I will post the October meeting minutes in December.

Meeting of 20th May 2008, Room 1.01, Cassie Building, Newcastle University, 18:00-19:30.

Present:

Paul Quinn (University of Newcastle)

Sebastien Tellier (JBA Consulting)

Derek Hilton-Brown (Newcastle City Council)

Bob Wilkin (Resident Garden Village)

Anna Newson (Friends of Jesmond Dene)

John Robinson (Newcastle City Council)

Benjamin Callard (University of Newcastle)

Dave Edwardson (Environment Agency)

Amanda Watson (Newcastle City Council)

Sarah Capes (Jesmond Dene Ranger)

Allan Snape (NWL)

MINUTES

1. Comments on the last minutes

Minutes from the October meeting were discussed and changes were suggested to ST.

ACTION:

ST to amend the minutes and publish them on the Ouseburn blog.

UPDATE:

October meeting minutes are now available on the blog.

2. News

• DEFRA Making Space for Water – Feedback of Summer Public Meeting

The Environment Agency organised the first meeting for the DEFRA project in August 2007, in the grounds of the Northern Rugby Club in Gosforth. The second meeting was used to disseminate the study results. It took place in the Northumbrian Piper on Red House Farm Estate from 4pm until 8.30pm on 27th March 2008. More than 60 residents attended the meeting. A site visit took place at 5pm to have a look at the Ouseburn at Acomb Crescent and up to the east side of the A1, where Newcastle Great Park is developing Cell G of their large development.

A series of presentations from Paul Quinn (OCSG/UNEW), Richard Robinson (EA – Project Manager) and Colin Percy (NCC –Mapping of creeping impermeability in Newcastle) took place from 7pm and questions were answered honestly by the three presenters.

The OCSG wrote a short report highlighting its conclusions and recommendations and it can be found on proactive website (www.ncl.ac.uk/iq/IQresults.html). This also includes other associated MS4W reports.

PQ highlighted that the role of the OCSG is to explain scientific issues to the public and bring all the different stakeholders to sit around the same table to discuss. The OCSG should have been the lead group as it was a well established (2 years existence) and respected by its members. The role of the group was appreciated, eventually, and there could still be a role for the group in continuing the liaison work on the Upper Ouseburn, and some funds may be forthcoming.

PQ reported that one of the main outputs of the project was to highlight that NGP development will not increase flood risks but will produce less runoff as it will be stored in water retention features. (The new planning and development control will only allow a development to occur if the runoff volume generated by the new development is less than the Greenfield runoff minus 20%, quoted from PPS25).

JBA was commissioned to find out that the causes of flooding in the Ouseburn and reported to the EA that during large storm event, up to 50% of the river flow can be discharged into the Ouseburn from Kingston Park outfall. The University of Newcastle instrumented the study area with rainfall gauges and river level gauges. UNEW observed that for 4 storm events in the last year and the Kingston Park outfall seems to be responsible for 50% to 70% of the river flow. The preliminary results of a student working on climate change and its possible impacts on the Ouseburn concluded that the latest climate model generator (created by UNEW and called EARWIG) the Ouseburn can expect up to 20% larger rainfall event. This will have an impact on the existing sewer network infrastructure.

The SUDS in the upper Ouseburn is at the moment mono-functional (storing surface water runoff from Melbury Park and releasing to the Ouseburn) but the OCSG would like to propose to look at increasing its functionality by making the Ouseburn flowing through it during flood event. The whole area will need to be re-engineered and some of the flows coming from Kingston Park could go through a series of pond before discharging back to the Ouseburn.

PQ asked Dave Edwardson if he could get hold of the final report for the Making Space for Water project as PQ and ST have asked several times to Richard Robinson but to no avail.

ACTION:

DE to ask Richard internally and send it to PQ and ST. ST will circulate the report to the other members of the OCSG.

ST to pursue RR to ask for more funding

The report by Colin Percy’s and NCC on creeping urbanisation was discussed. The report looked at 11 urban residential areas using aerial photographs from 1996 and 2005 and comparing the front and back garden of every house. The results show a 20% increase of paving in these areas and the reduction of permeable surfaces were mostly at the front of the house (65%) than at the back.

Amanda Watson asked how we could raise awareness regarding block paving. Colin Percy was unable to attend and this question could not be answered on its behalf.

• Jesmond Dene News

ST had a meeting with AW on 30th April 2008 as the HLF board asked for an updated water quality statement for stage 2 of the bid. HLF bid includes several parks in the Ouseburn catchment (Heaton Park and Armstrong Park) and will fund 5 new staff (park manager, educational manager, etc). The funded works will concentrate on bank stabilisation work, building new bridges and conference centre.

PQ asked if any money will be spent to clean the river. AW replied that all the money has been allocated in the current bid. PQ asked if it should have considered a large storm event where combined sewer overflow discharge into the Ouseburn and kids jump into the Ouseburn in Jesmond Dene and swallow the water?

ST reminded the group that Benjamin Callard (UNEW MSc student) is currently doing his dissertation on the feasibility of creating water storage features along the Ouseburn and the conclusions of his work would be used in for the Ouseburn Catchment Action Plan. The OCSG would like to investigate the feasibility of creating water storage features just downstream of South Gosforth roundabout, at the top of Jesmond Dene.

• Water Quality Sampling in the Ouseburn

TRT contacted PQ and ST to organise a kick sampling event in the Ouseburn. TRT and the OCG met at the end of April to discuss the possible locations for the sampling. They were:

1. Woolsington pond (West of the A696) – Reference site in terms of best quality;

2. Kingston Park (upstream and downstream of the discharge point);

3. A1 bridge on Red House Farm Estate (upstream and downstream of the bridge);

4. Jesmond Dene (upstream of the waterfall);

5. City Stadium Culvert (upstream near White bridge and downstream of the culvert).

UPDATE:

The results can not be significant as one event is not enough to characterise the river quality but the water biology monitoring should carry on in the next six month.

ACTION:

ST to check in September with Ceri Gibson if more monitoring is needed. The results will be made available on the blog.

• Newcastle International Airport visit

PQ, ST, BC and Rachael Ashworth (NCC) went to NIA to look at the airport ponds. NIA uses glycol to de-ice aircraft during the winter season and the runoff is tested using a total organic content monitor (TOC is a good indicator for glycol concentration in water). The runoff is tested continuously and if the TOC detects a high value of TOC, the runoff is diverted to the ponds, if not the runoff is released straight to Sunnyside drain which flows into the Ouseburn.

These ponds have been designed to store polluted runoff until the glycol concentration is below the accepted rate to discharge into Sunnyside drain. The three ponds can store up to 25000 m3 of water and reach high levels during peak storm winter flows. NIA is trying to renegotiate with NWL their discharge consent to NWL sewers. At the moment NIA consent is 20l/s but NIA would like to increase it to 160l/s.

3. OCSG – The Way Forward

ST mentioned that there is only £1000 available on the OCSG account and there is a need to re-focus our effort towards our two main goals: creating a water storage feature and drafting the Ouseburn Catchment Action Plan (OCAP). PQ added that the OCAP would include our vision and we could help to deliver the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in the next couple of years. The Environment Agency is already concentrating on the second phase of the WFD, starting in 2010.

Allan Snape thought that we should have project on measuring water quality during storm event at different locations in the Ouseburn. NWL might be able to help.

ACTION:

ST and PFQ to write the OCAP and it should be available in February 2009.

Tyne Rivers Trust has recently recruited a new director, Malcom Newson, from Newcastle University where he was professor in the geography department. He is a national and international expert in geomorphology and catchment management. The OCSG is looking forward to meet him in the next couple of month, to discuss possible collaboration.

ACTION:

ST and PQ to contact Malcolm Newson in September to discuss possible collaboration.

Richard Robinson has told ST and PFQ of the possibility of more funding available for the OCSG.

UPDATE:

RR confirmed in June 2008 that an extra £10K will be made available to the OCSG to work on the follow-up of the Making Space for Water project.

Date of next meeting:

Tuesday 14th October 2008 at 18:00 at Newcastle University, Cassie Building, Room 1.01.

Update weeks starting 28th October

The main change is that our OCSG account has been credited with £10K from DEFRA via the Environment Agency. I would like to thank Elizabeth Bunting for her support.
Except from this very good news, I spent some time preparing the 5th November site visit, during which we will look at potential sites on the Ouseburn for possible water storage features. We are planning to visit the source of the Ouseburn, Gosforth Golf course and Jesmond Dene. We should accompagnied with Steve Barratt, Bob Wilkin and hopefully Derek Hilton-Brown from Newcastle City Council.
I have also set up a meeting with Phil Bell to look at videos and photographs of the flooding in Newcastle Great Park area.
I also should start writing the OCAP in the coming weeks as we are intending to have a draft version for the Annual Meeting in February 2009.
Have all a good week,
Sebastien

Week starting on 20th October

Hello,

I have left this blog on its own for too long so I have decided to post once a week my tribulations in the Ouseburn, it will help to keep tracks on what happened the previous week.
We had a good meeting last week to discuss the current state of affairs in the Ouseburn after the September floods. The minutes are getting finalised and should be sent to all the members this week. In the meantime, I will start this week to look into the Community Ward Grants as Steve Barrett suggested it could be a good place apply for some funding. The first two projects we have in mind is creating a retention pond near Gosforth Golf Course and some rural water storage in the Upper Ouseburn. For the first project I will try to work with Bob Wilkin and for the second with Steve. I will keep you posted with my progress in the next weeks.
There were a series of emails yesterday between Paul Q, the EA and NWL (Les Hall) regarding Newcastle Great Park Cell I SuDs and the conditions for its possible adoption by Newcastle City Council, all very interesting.
Our position is to push forward with the proposed diversion scheme at the upstream end of Cell I and then work on the SuDs when it will be adopted by the Council.
Paul and I are meeting with Malcolm Newsom tomorrow afternoon to talk about Tyne Rivers Trust projects and a possible collaboration with our little group.
See you here next week.
Sebastien

Update on the OCSG

Hello All,

A quick update to let you know that the OCSG is still active as we have received more funding from the DEFRA, part of the Making Space for Water project. We will host in the next couple of weeks an evening meeting to discuss our current activities and the plan for the next twelve months for the OCSG.
We are currently working with the Environment Agency on a Flood Levy project in the upper Ouseburn, looking at diverting some of the high flows of the Ouseburn to some existing pond, this pond will be linked to the large Cell I pond in order to remove some of the sediments and improve the water quality of the river. We are also working on an action delivery plan for 2009. All of this plus the recent flooding in the Ouseburn and the lower Ouseburn will be discussed in our next meeting.
I will email everybody in a couple of weeks when the meeting date is finalised.
See you all very soon,
Sebastien

Quikmap for the Ouseburn

Dear All,

I am trying to come up with a map for the Ouseburn that everybody can populate online.
here is the start.

OCSG May Meeting - New Beginning or the End is NIgh?

Dear All,

You are all invited to the upcoming Ouseburn Catchment Steering Group meeting it will take place on Tuesday 20th May 2008, between 18:0-19:30, in Room 1.01 in the Cassie Building, Newcastle University.

The meeting will be to discuss the future of the Ouseburn Catchment Steering Group in terms of work and future collaboration.

Please let me know if you would like to attend either via email or telephone.

Paul and I are looking forward to see you all again.

Here are the main agenda items:

1. NEWS ITEMS

Upper Ouseburn MS4W final meeting and project outputs

Invertebrates Sampling Day in the Ouseburn – 7th May

Heritage Lottery Project Update

Newcastle International Airport Site Visit – 9th May

2. WAY FORWARD FOR THE OCSG

Ouseburn Catchment Action Plan

Ouseburn Catchment Role to deliver Water Framework Directive

Source of funding – Awards for All – Else?

3. ANY OTHER BUSINESS

4. NEXT MEETING DATE AND LOCATION