UPTON’S waterfront could be totally transformed as the Environment Agency looks for effective and sympathetic ways to implement the town’s long-awaited flood defences.
Environment Agency officials discussed their progress on the project before an Upton Town Council meeting on Tuesday evening (April 29).
Councillors and members of the public were told that plans for the New Street area are “99 per cent there”, and that a planning application for that section of the work - comprising an earth bund and flood wall - will hopefully be submitted in June.
However project manager Brian Patten said a scheme for the waterfront was proving more complex, with the need to provide a solution that both maximises protection and softens the visual impact in a prominent part of town.
A landscape architect has been appointed to the project and the Environment Agency is working with regional development agency Advantage West Midlands to look at a wider enhancement of the waterfront area.
This could include planting, landscaping, road raising, introducing new street furniture and partial pedestrianisation.
“The work we are doing is all about softening the impact of what could potentially be an intrusive development,” said Mr Patten. “Resilience is a key driver. We want something that is ready to be used at any time.”
He added that the Environment Agency’s aim is to protect Upton to the level of the 2007 summer floods, the highest on record for more than 50 years.
“Climate change predictions mean flooding like 2007 might become more standard,” he said. “We want to offer the best level of protection possible for current and future generations.”
It is hoped that more detailed proposals for the waterfront will be available by early summer, with a planning application following shortly the one for the New Street section.
Both sets of plans will be passed to Upton Town Council for inspection before they are formally submitted.
Mike Ostick, a member of the Upton Town Partnership, told the meeting that should a protection scheme not be implemented, Upton would become a “commercial, residential and tourist disaster zone.”
“As custodians of the town, its heritage and its people Upton Town Council must be seen to be 100 per cent supportive of these schemes,” he said.
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