Cheers for that J.F.R. For anybody without access to the DT
the text is reproduced below
Cheers,
Rich
After rain, the deluge as village is swamped
By Richard Alleyne
WHEN the rain stopped nine days ago, the villagers of Compton breathed
a sigh of relief and congratulated themselves that they had escaped the
worst of the flooding.
Little damage had been done and the only evidence of three months of
relentless rain was a modest rise in the level of the River Pang, a
trickle of water that runs through the village. But to the horror of
residents, the water kept rising long after the downpours ended -
cascading from manholes, filling cellars and turning roads into rivers.
The problem was not surface water, but underground springs. The months
of rain had saturated the surrounding chalk hills of the Berkshire
Downs to the point that they could hold no more water, deluging the
village. Irene Hunter, 74, who has lived in the village all her life,
said: "I have never seen anything like it. There have always been
springs but this is the worst I have seen."
Tony Scott, 53, and his wife Pat, who own the 18th-century former home
of the writer Dick Francis, are pumping more than 1,200 gallons from
the house hourly. Mrs Scott, a corporate financial consultant said: "It
started just after Christmas, but it only got really bad after the rain
stopped. The water literally rose from below the floor of our
children's playroom.
"We had to install a pump because it was gushing in from outside.
Otherwise I think the house would sink." Frank Jarrett, 85, a former
marine engineer who has lived in the Forge House since the beginning of
the Second World War, has a foot of water in his half cellar.
He said: "I have a device that measures the level of my well. It is as
high as it ever has been. The water table is 2ft below the ground. The
village is virtually floating." David Golby, 42, an accountant whose
father Ernest's home, High Street Cottage, was flooded out, said: "It
has cost us thousands of pounds. The water came up through the floor
for the first time in 40 years. It has never been like this before."
Compton, a farming village that dates back to pre-Roman times, and a
centre for racing stables, lies at the source of the Pang. Ordinarily
it runs in a ditch beside the main road. Local folklore has it that
every decade or so the chalk hills surrounding the village became full
of water and the springs at the start of the river appear.
A water pumping station built on the edge of the village put paid to
this as it sucked out millions of gallons of water a day. But the
closure of the pumping station three years ago and the extreme rainfall
has resulted in the water table rising to unprecedented levels. The
problem has been exacerbated by leaking sewers, allowing raw waste to
escape into the streets. The school had to close when the playground
was swamped.
Bill Evans, a retired teacher who is the chairman of the parish
council, said: "When I first came here in 1954 I was told by the old
codgers of the village that it flooded every seven or eight years but
this is the worst I have seen. What is funny is the water gushing out
is so clean. We should be bottling the stuff. We could make a fortune."
The problem has become so bad that council inspectors and water workers
have descended on the village. The good news is that it is a one-off
event, the bad is that it could a month to end. A spokesman for West
Berkshire council said: "The rainfall has caused underground aquifers
to overflow into fields, roads and the River Pang. There is little we
can do. It is just nature being cruel."
URL.....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=002549632124328&rtmo=gjwYZSYu&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/01/2/23/nflud23.html
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On Fri, 23 Feb 2001 12:06:16 +0000 "J.F.Roper"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Today's Daily Telegraph (page 13)has an illustrated article Erupting
> springs put village under water.Compton inBerkshire on the River
> Pang is suffering from floods that happen about once a decade
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Rich Pederick
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