Update week starting on 24th November

Paul and I had a good meeting with all the different parties (EA, NCC, NWL, NGP)in Newcastle Great Park offices. The main output of the meeting is to create a post-flood statement for the Ouseburn residents and to convene more meetings to keep all the different parties aware of everybody's moves.
We received the confirmation from Newcastle City Council that we can attend the 20 January 2009 NGP advisory committee and present our view on the issues in the Ouseburn.
We are also attending CPRE meeting tonight to present our group objectives.
I also need to start writing the Action Delivery Plan, this should hopefully start next week.
In the meantime, have all a good week.

Site visit in the Ouseburn

Morning,

My second post of the day is about the site visit we undertook with Steve Barrrett, Bob Wilkin, Derek Hilton-Brown, Paul Quinn and I. We started in Callerton, looking at the source of the Ouseburn and we agreed that the pond is currently silting up and need some management. It might be the only wetland in Newcastle and it would be a shame if the City loses it.

We then went to look at a pond stuck between the A696 and the Metro line, the Ouseburn discharges into the pond via a small pipe and there seems to be no outlet pipe, hence the small inlet pipe. North of the pond, there is a hollow where water stands.
We also went to Gosforth Golf Course where we had a meeting with the Club Committee and we found that the the Golf Course has been shut 50 days this year due to floodwater still present on the course.
We finished our site visit with Jesmond Dene, looking at a weir near Pet's Corner, that Sarah from Jesmond Dene Ranger services would like to remove.
Anyway, I have uploaded some photographs of the site visit, have a look here:

Site visit in November 2008 - Fact finding missing in the Ouseburn catchment

Sebastien

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