THE recent meeting between John Burnett MP and representatives of local organisations and authorities was a valuable first step at addressing flooding in North Tawton. The North Tawton Environmental Trust, however, offers a slightly different view on how best to deal with the problem.

Firstly, the severe flooding experienced last Christmas was a freak natural event, caused by an unfortunate combination of several factors, and such flooding occurs every 20 years or so on many river systems.

Secondly, the North Tawton floods are not down to a single cause, there is a complex mix of several different problems including old sewage systems and several bottlenecks in its water drainage routes.

But this isn't the complete picture. It is not an increasing volume of water within the River Taw and its tributaries which is the problem.

Rather it is the increased rate at which water is entering the Taw system during very wet periods that the town's infrastructure cannot cope with.

We must consider the whole river catchment, and any land sloping down to a watercourse of any size will have a direct influence on the total water entering the system.

All land use within the catchment, agricultural, industrial or residential, will change the nature of a valley. Soil compaction, removal of marshland and covering land in buildings with impermeable surfaces will all have a direct effect on the rate of water entering rivers, the Taw included.

Should the Environment Agency install large flood-defences at the Taw Bridge?

Should WDBC support enlarging of culverts and drainage pipes to deal with larger water volumes?

Or should they both look to selective land management within the Taw catchment and water storage within the town itself to reduce the rate of run-off?

The answer should be the latter.

It will take co-operation between many organisations and landowners. But surely encouraging and subsidising landowners to protect or restore marshes to act as sponge areas, or to restore thick vegetation alongside rivers as buffer-strips, would reduce the rate of water entering North Tawton as a first step.

As a second, subsidising households and businesses to install water-butts or larger storage vessels on guttering would further reduce the rate of water being added to channels on the way through.

We all have a responsibility for the flooding of North Tawton, and can all make a contribution to reducing it.

Installing bigger pipes and drains may save a few unfortunate households' furniture next winter, but the problem of flooding will remain, and will simply be moved downstream to the next bottleneck (Bondleigh?).

Let's deal with flooding at source not where it manifests itself as a problem. It must be cheaper and more effective in the long term.

Destructive river-dredging and large concrete walls adjacent to the medieval Taw Bridge — now that really is a waste of taxpayers' money!

Stuart Coleman

Project Manager

North Tawton Environmental Trust