Flooding

Several areas of Mortimer suffer from flooding, some fairly regularly e.g. bottom of The Street near the station. It is vital that new housing developments do not make the current situation worse and ideally the opportunity is taken to improve it. The National Planning Policy Framework and the West Berkshire Core Strategy set out the minimum requirements with regard to managing flood risk. The Plan addresses specific issues of Mortimer.

New development needs to be subject to an assessment to establish the effect of the development due to a rise in the water table or any increase in surface water run-off.

Anti-flooding designs must protect not only the site but ensure no increase in downstream risks particularly those areas that are known flood risks identified in the Mortimer Flood Report following the 2007 storm and the Environment Agency maps. To reduce groundwater, surface or river flooding, modern Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) need to be an integral part of a site’s development.

The flood designs should achieve a minimum level of protection, for example to cope with a 1-in-100 year event level taking in to account climate change predictions. The base rainfall conditions for such a measurement might be the storm of 2007.

Practical and effective management regimes for the maintenance of their anti-flooding solutions to ensure that they continue to operate effectively and efficiently will have to be established.

This section contains information corresponding to Core Policy CS16 of the West Berkshire Council Core Strategy Development Plan (DPD) 2012 - 2026.