9 - Greene Oak pub and Cardinal Clinic

Status 0 (overview)     9 "Wetspots" report 2020     Photos

From the relative high ground of Tarbay Lane water heads north towards the Thames taking various routes through the dwellings south of the Dedworth Road. Once it reaches Dedworth Road there is really no sensible onward route and it gushes into the car park of the Greene Oak and out from under the road into the grounds of The Cardinal Clinic.

This is the most difficult of all the "wet spots" to deal with and will require a major detailed survey and technical propositions to try and hold the water back to delay the arrival of large amounts of water. The only other option would seem to be major storm drain works under the roads to take the water more efficiently towards and under the A308 and to the Thames. We have been able to achieve absolutely nothing here, and it is very disheartening to hear that a Streetcare officer once said that although he had worked for RBWM for 5 years he was not aware of any flooding in this area. Really ?

Once rainfall abates water levels generally fall quite speedily - much more quickly than in the past. This would suggest that some continuing maintenance work by Streetcare was beneficial. But it also suggests that there is probably little we can do to improve onward flow.

So we need to turn again to the possibility of delaying the arrival of all this water and spreading the flow over a longer period of time at a slower pace. This of course will in time require discussions with various landowners and we can hardly expect them to be keen on the idea of donating land to become a sump. We will need to investigate how we might be able to raise funding for this sort of work.

The area north of the A308 and south between the A308 and the Dedworth Road is being considered for development. Good Luck to whoever ends up trying to build on this land !