Images Martyn Williams Photography
Asda, West Bridgford, 4.30 Monday 21st November. It’s rained all night and day. Well that’s pretty normal in Nottingham in November.
What’s strange is the hysteria surrounding weather that we see in weather apps that are contested and competitive, weather forecasts that are hysterical and big elephants in everyone’s room (like the impact of tarmaccadding over a number of development years that results in such flooding).
No questions in the public domain about why these things happen. Flash flooding and worse. Can we address this and change it if we think about where and how we use tarmac and whether it can be evolved into a much more environmentally friendly substance? An app for that, a process for that? Not just the easy solutions but using technologies to answer the bigger questions and routing funding towards these big questions?
Why are we so keen to build apps but not attend to the streets, paths, pavements? Can anyone build an app called the story of the streets which could be used to look at the ‘problems’ we face and look at games that can help us see these problems more clearly?
signsofanopencity 
I got this reply:Dear Paula
Thank you for emailing Neil Parish MP this morning with your comments on a couple of points including on trees and flooding. I will have a look at these points so when we do more work on the issue of flooding we can bear them in mind. We are holding a session on forests in England next week – Tuesday afternoon – so do have a watch if you get chance. It will be on our watch live button on http://www.parliament.uk website from 2.15 pm [select Environment, Food and Rural Affairs option in the calendar for 2.15 pm on 6 December]. One of the issues is around the role of trees in delivering multiple benefits including helping to prevent flooding. The Committee went to see the Pickering Slow the Flow project in the summer for our floods inquiry – we saw how tree planting and woody dams (putting logs across rivers) helped to reduce flooding downstream since it slows the flow of storm water long enough to reduce flood peaks. When land cover, particularly tree cover, is removed soil becomes more compacted and run off more extreme so we see tree planting as a key way of opening up the soil to allow water to percolate down rather than flow off downstream to flood settlements. There is more about this in our report on Future flood prevention at
Click to access 115.pdf
best wishes
Sarah Coe
EFRA Specialist
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Flood prevention is in parliament this year from Feb 2016 we’ve been debating this
Neil Parish MP, Chair of the Committee, says:
“Flood damage of the sort suffered by communities across the UK this winter is becoming all-too-frequent an occurrence. I know from personal experience how flooding can damage not only buildings, land and infrastructure, but how it can also devastate lives.
Questions need to be answered about whether there are adequate measures in place to plan for frequent, extreme flood events. We want to see how effectively the Environment Agency predicts and prepares for floods in a changing climate. We will also be asking how far Defra policies protect communities in high risk areas from future devastation.”
I’ve contacted Neil Parish about tarmac and will be posting his thoughts here. Let’s get a debate going. Neils website is: https://www.neilparish.co.uk
Go Neil!
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The idea of looking at what is possible in relation to streets, pavements, shop signs is very exciting. Beautiful Streets, Pavements, Shop Signs in Nottingham!
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The images really catch that moment we’re all in, looking very closely at the wrong detail for the answer?
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Thanks to Martyn Williams for these images. Very interesting!
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