HAS King Canute come to Hereford?

For obvious reasons, planning guidance states that we should not build on flood plains. When development was proposed for the Edgar Street grid, it was decided that there must be a way to defeat natural processes.

A flood diversion scheme was designed to take water from the Yazor Brook through a culvert, from near Credenhill across to the River Wye near the Weir Gardens. Planners ignored the fact that, before the Ice Age, the River Wye used to flow along the valley of the Yazor Brook.

Surface water can be diverted, but most of the flow of the Yazor Brook just sinks into the gravels which now fill the wide, former Wye valley, which is cut deeply into bedrock.

The Yazor Brook continues to flood Merton Meadow, despite the £4 million spent to prevent this.

It seems that plans to build not only on Merton Meadow but also on other flood plains have not been abandoned. Can someone tell me exactly what is happening?

There's talk that further work is planned to create another culvert to put right problems of the poorly designed flood diversion scheme. More wasted money.

MOIRA JENKINS Oaklands, Malvern