Oakley Green, Fifield and District Community Association Ltd
Environment - Wet Spot 4 - The Coningsby Lane Shambles
Drainage update 25 - 01.02.2019 - Wet Spot 4 - The Coningsby Lane Shambles

Somewhere around 1987 or 1988 I was returning from a walk with the dogs when I came across a builder tipping rubble into a ditch that ran north from Coningsby Lane. There was no pipe in place to allow the flow of water to pass. I had to ask the question and received the reply "it's no problem, this ditch isn't needed anyway - it doesn't do anything."

I knew very well that it acted as an overflow for Coningsby Lane but nothing I said convinced the builder that he should perhaps reconsider. Since that creation of a drive entrance for the new house that ditch became more and more overgrown and gradually filled with brambles and saplings and has now almost completely disappeared although it is still possible to detect where it used to be.

In October 2000 a very wet autumn resulted in a LOT of water unable to escape from the area of the Coningsby Lane and Fifield Road junction. The ground became completely saturated. Many residents suffered inconvenience and flooding inside. This situation has been repeated many times over the years since then. Pictures from a couple of the most recent episodes can be found here.

An exceptionally dry and mild autumn and winter has spared us yet another repeat but there can be no doubt that it will inevitably happen again ... sooner or later. Back in 2000 it was clear that a serious look at what might be possible to improve the situation was needed. So in 2001 causes were identified, possibilities investigated, a report produced in 2002 and a dialogue started with RBWM.

A young drainage engineer we knew as Canadian Mark was on a year's placement with RBWM and was carrying out extensive surveys of the existing drainage situation. Until then records of whatever system there was existed only in George's head. But George had just retired ! Mark responded to us enthusiastically and thoroughly surveyed the route we were proposing to reinstate heading north from Coningsby Lane and along the edge of the Biffa site to the Fifield Road. He discovered that there was a slight high point in the middle of the route and asked Biffa to clear it - which they kindly did.

In those days it seemed that Local Government was functioning fairly well even though things were a bit clunky in respect of records, diagrams, maps etc. There was a willingness and a courtesy in their dealings with residents. The plan was then that RBWM would provide the piping and install a culvert across Coningsby Lane and replace an old pipe under the footpath further north. The local Residents were to provide volunteer labour and £100 contribution per household.

Unfortunately it was summer again and only a couple of volunteer labourers and 4 households could see the necessity of actually proceeding. That a ditch ever existed was also challenged and a long running misunderstanding about whether land would need to be purchased for a "new" ditch. Consequently the local residents squandered a fantastic opportunity to improve a ridiculously stupid situation. What we should have done at the time was just increase the contribution per household to £350 each for the 4 willing households and just get it done. Now, 18 years later, how I wish we had done that !

Things limped and stumbled on through the years with the occasional repeat but essentially we had lost the opportunity. Then OGAFCA started and drainage featured very strongly in the returns from the THE SURVEY and in the report compiled a short time later the Coningsby Lane shambles cropped up as Wet Spot 4 in the 9 that were identified in order of ease of improvement ... HAH !

We have been slogging away at it ever since but although there have been some minor successes elsewhere this one has proved very obstinate. Simon Lavin of Streetcare was generally very helpful and we achieved one or two things to cheer about ... but not here. Streetcare were reluctant to acknowledge that there had ever been a ditch even though it is even now not too difficult to pick out where it ran. They understandably shied away from getting involved in local controversy.

Because the ditch was a contentious issue with a local resident Streetcare offered an underground pipe heading north down the edge of the Coningsby Farm field just to the west. Oh Boy - that went down like a lead balloon ! So we came up with a proposition of a pipe heading north under the footpath in an attempt to be less controversial and avoid conflict.

With help from Cllr Coppinger a meeting was arranged in summer 2016 attended by Streetcare, Cllrs Dudley and Coppinger, OGAFCA, and a couple of local residents. That meeting resulted in a budget being allocated, a decision to finally proceed with the work required, and a commitment by Streetcare to complete the project by the end of October 2016 ... which of course came and went with no sign of any kind of action whatever !

Time passed ... we tried to ask questions ... no answers were forthcoming. Without warning in Autumn 2017 some work began across Coningsby Lane - we cheered - but then they packed up and went away. After frequent attempts to discover what was going on we managed to discover that the work we had witnessed was actually an investigation of what was under the surface of Coningsby Lane to help with drawing up plans for the work ... a year after it should have been completed.

Things went very quiet and no response could be obtained to any requests for status reports. Then in early 2018 a letter went out to Residents with an enclosed technical drawing of the proposed work. A date for closure of the footpath was announced - May 1 till June 15 2018. But needless to say we cruised into mid summer with no sign of anything happening.

For years we had been dealing with Streetcare but quite recently the whole situation at RBWM has changed to outsource the work required for the maintenance of highways, drainage, street lights etc to a commercial organisation called Project Centre. So we have lost our long term contact developed over years. After frequently repeated and unanswered email requests to the Highways Officer now responsible for commissioning this work we once again had to ask for help from our Ward Councillor.

Cllr Coppinger managed once again to arrange a meeting at The Town Hall between two Highways Officers and 4 local residents for OGAFCA and Coningsby Lane on 26 Oct 2018. We learned that even though a technical drawing and letter had been issued and a date announced for the work to take place it had clearly been premature.

Although the route had been surveyed in 2002 apparently there was now a need to do that all over again which would take time. There was also a need to carry out yet another Eco survey ... which of course would take even more time.

I presented a series of photos showing that the field through which the route would pass had just been completely flattened by a very large machine to return it to its original open pasture and any Greater Crested Newts or Badgers must have long since either run for the hills or are now finely chopped mince meat. Sadly this was dismissed as not removing the need to involve experts and time and tax-payers money. I despair to think how much of our money is squandered by a systematic refusal to apply any kind of common sense interpretation to anything at all.

We were told that further delay had been the lack of any response from the landowners involved. There is history in this which is a whole other story not possible to tell here. The Council has Land Drainage powers in these circumstances to notify a landowner that because they have failed to respond the work will proceed nevertheless. It was agreed that such a notification would at long last actually be issued immediately.

We raised the issue of lack of response from RBWM despite very many requests for information and status updates pointing out that apart from demonstrating a complete failure of the proper functioning of a Local Government department it was also extremely discourteous. We received an apology and the suggestion that in future we should use the general Highways email address and the individual monitoring it would make sure to obtain a swift reply from the relevant Officer.

One other matter was raised concerning the Area Catchment study for which we supplied much detailed data to the original Consultants in May 2015 but that is another whole different story for another time.

Time passed and we heard no more so a month after the meeting on 27 Nov 2018 we sent an email requesting a status update. As agreed we ensured the main addressee was Highways even though individual Officers and Councillors were copied also. We got the regular automated response guaranteeing a response within 10 working days. I'm sure no reader will be surprised to hear that no such thing was forthcoming.

On working day 24 on the 7 January 2019 we again asked for a reply, including a reminder of what had been promised at our meeting more than 2 months earlier. When still no reply was forthcoming on 11 January 2019, working day 28, we sent a rather forceful message addressed to whoever was monitoring the Highways email and included the leader of the Council and Head of Highways. This achieved a little attention but it was not until 15 January 2019 (working day 30 !) that we received anything resembling an answer to our specific questions which constituted some sort of status update.

It turns out that in 13 weeks since our meeting in October 3 people in hi-vis jackets have walked the route and confirmed that the levels are such that the scheme should be viable - confirmation 16 years later of what had been established in 2002. Apart from that nothing much has moved - the Eco survey is still to be carried out and there is still no reply from the Landowners. We have replied to this effect and requested another meeting in the first week of February to establish a start and finish date for the necessary work.

I look back with nostalgia at the enthusiastic and hopeful comparative "youngster" that I was in my early 50s when I first started banging my head against this brick wall. The intervening period has turned me into a cynical and grumpy old man ! I suppose the whole thing would be quite funny if it wasn't such a miserably dismal tale of bureaucratic inertia, ineptitude and sheer incompetence. If we tried to submit it as a script for a radio or TV comedy it would be rejected as being too far-fetched and unlikely.

Rod Lord - ex OGAFCA Environment