Heavy rain caused minor flooding in a nearby car park
Despite water seeping into a pub car park during mid-August storms, Totnes’ new £3.8m flood prevention scheme ‘performed as expected’, the Environment Agency have said.
The heavy rain over the weekend of August 11 and 12 meant that the tide on Sunday night on the River Dart was high enough for the flood gate at the Steam Packet pub to be closed for the first time.
But on Monday morning, there was minor flooding of the car park, and on Monday night, water once again seeped out into the car park.
The Environment Agency launched an investigation. A spokesman said: “The gates performed as expected and did not leak, however as the tide rose, water from the River Dart entered the surface water drains in the Steam Packet Inn car park. This backed up causing minor flooding of the car park. Our contractors will investigate all the surface water drainage to ensure river water cannot back up the drains again.
“Before the scheme’s construction, the car park flooded on the occasional spring tide, so this spring tide was a good opportunity to test the surface water drainage and identify any problems before a much larger high tide.”
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