Flood Risk Assessment Dartmouth
SWEL were approached by a private land owner in Dartmouth, who had an old garage that they wished to convert to residential use.
A scheme was developed that saw a building designed to be minimally affected in the event of flooding. Ground floor living accommodation was not included in the scheme, instead the living accommodation was included only on the 1st floor.
The 1st floor accommodation was proven to above likely flood depths via the use of detailed flood modelling data, which showed the site to flood to a round depth of 0.6 meters in a very bad flood.
Despite a thorough report concerns were raised over flood safety, the main objections coming from the Environment Agency, and as such they were in a mind to refuse the application.
Despite the flood maps showing a depth of 0.6 meters they do not specify a duration for the flood. However thinking pragmatically this is only likely to last 4 – 6 hours owing to influence of tides, it was this concept put forward by SWEL and presented to district council’s development committee, with a successful out come.
Such was the surprise at the persistent objections from the Environment Agency, that the application had some coverage by the local press.