Middlehaven Development cover up?

Flooding: Wasting money on Imperfect drainage, and strong headed stupidity-W.C. Seymour MIDDLESBROUGH 1878.

MIDDLESBROUGH council claimed in July 2003 that the area of Middlehaven in Middlesbrough only floods now once in 100 to 200 years?

Mayor Ray Mallon said on BBC radio cleveland in Oct 2003 that he was not aware of the flood plain on the site, yet he signed the climate change argeement that claimed they would not development on flood plains, and clearly showed Middlehaven on the map?

He is the true frequency of flooding and below our story of which many of you may have been through, hopefully together we can combat the government to really listen and stick to there word! We started by setting up a Residents group T.A.M.S. and making links with other communities unity is strength!

History of Flooding in Central Middlesbrough(Flood plain)
2003 Once
2002 Twice
2001 Once
2000 Twice
1995 Once
1983 Once
1979 Twice
1971 Three times
1953 Once
1947 Twice
1925 Three times
1912 Once
1910 Once
1919 Once
1900 Three times
1895 Six times
1886 Three times
1882 Twice
1880 Twice
1878 Once

OUR STORY SO FAR:
After the June/Nov 2000 flooding in the part of Middlesbrough where I live, and where I and others feel the council has failed to
address the problem, local councillors turned their backs on the issue, calling it a one of freak flood. Dismissing it at every
Community Council meeting, this went on between June 2000-June 2002. Even to the point where one councillor said.

Councillor don't bring this up Gordon I warn you!

Councillor (shouted): “I won’t dance to anybody’s beat!”
Gordon: “Sorry what, that’s a strange thing to say for an
elected person?”
Well, I believe you are mixing up the terms: we never said you should agree with everything we say, that would be silly. Firstly
everyone (including councillors) have the right to agree or disagree on issues and even more so with the information at hand,but this is not or ever has been in dispute here. What is fact is that as an elected councillor by the people you must answer in some way to the people that’s your job, so your ‘dancing to the beat’ as
you put it has some element of truth to it however not fully in the context you place it. We just don’t want to ‘dismiss things out of
hand’. We are not asking for you to move mountains or turn water into wine, just simple councillor duties, that of raising this issue,
that is not going to go away!

The councillor in question claimed that I had threatened him with an attack in an e-mail.
Gordon:” I have NEVER EVER threatened you with physical abuse “
Cllr: “Oh No not you I mean Mr Stead” (my vice Chairman)
Gordon: “You can’t go around claiming it’s one person then
next calling some one else, and besides there are others who give
a different interpretation to that Email that Mr Stead sent. I
believe you are using us and this argument as a ‘scape goat’ for
your own apathy councillor.”
The fact is that Mr Stead had a baby girl who could have died from infection with whatever was in that flood water, which in fact wasn’t even tested by the council. So I am not surprised he was angry at the time, but he never threatened the Councillor that’s for sure. Other elderly were forced to move out or suffered
strokes as a result. We then pushed this issue with a petition which 80 people signed and pass it onto the town hall, as well as an 11
page paper outlining our concerns both to the Mayor and councillor. We formed a Resident group (called T.A.M.S.) to both look for new solutions and tackle the council’s apathy on all sorts
of issues [with the Help of the Pari centre in Italy see:www.paricenter.com].
In the meantime, we discovered a new type of flood defence that was made of part of a window frame with a board that youcould put in place and Vacuum sealed, we offered this solution to
the council and asked for grant money. However, they refused with no explanation as to why, later we offered this to another couple Mr & Mrs Noctor, who where flooded when Mr Noctor
was very ill, it may not be the best but it’s better than what the council offered which was NOTHING. Another couple from a different area had to live in a caravan for seven months because
the inside of their house had been almost totally ripped to pieces through by the flood, their children had to spent Christmas in this
caravan. We campaigned with them in order to make the council more accountable, however this fell on deaf ears. One councillor
actually wrote to another councillor, saying:
“In fact, it is rather surprising that, given that one family is still living in a caravan, the council has not had a lot of bad
publicity.” After the couple showed me this letter, I then changed into the
good councillor’s fairy godmother and proceeded to grant his wish, informing the local papers and TV, to highlight their plight
in order for them to get some help. Still nothing happened,leaving them in a caravan for the rest of that year. Now we all
know we can’t prevent every flood but it would be silly not to prepare for one, well clearly the council never thought of this
when it comes to development. The Middlehaven development(So far they have £4.56 million from Middlesbrough Council, £36 million from the Government and around £43 million from other
private investors) supported by the same guy who gave us The M-DOME Lord Falconer, Middlehaven is to be developed in and
around a flood plain. Now stop me if I am wrong but any change in initial conditions
of an area would increase the risk of flooding, by making a system more complex it becomes more unpredictable and Non-linear,thus putting residents and jobs at potentially risk. However MayorMallon said that he knew nothing about the flood plain on the Middlehaven site (BBC radio Cleveland Oct 2003), Funny thing is
that he signed and stared in the July 2003 Climate change document (Middlesbrough council) which not only shows clearly the flood plain on a map, but also states what they must do in order to prevent further problems:

Planning policy to restrict future development in flood plains and require better natural drainage (Climate change Document July
2003)
The Risk of Flooding in the shaded area is now once in every 100-200
years, but this could increase to once in every 20-50 years (Climate change Document July 2003)
This could increase?


Well, this is strange in that it totally
contradicts the frequency of flooding in their own flood report
(see: Flood prevention issue working group Final Report 18 Oct
2002), showing that not only has it already been flooding once in
every 10-20 year period since the 1950s, but it seems to be
increasing to around once in every 2-3 years over the last five
years. Not to mention the fact that the town is below sea level and
on marshland. Mind you even this report leave out a lot of history
prior to 1953. In fact, in 1856 Joseph Pease, one of the ‘owners’ of
Middlesbrough, admitted to a select committee of the House of
Commons that he had laid out the original town himself and
recognised his mistakes, but he claimed that his condition of
building had been subverted and that only by an Act of Parliament
could they become more effective. The surveyor, John Dunning,
in confirming this declared that prior to 1855 the cellars of some
houses were below the level of the drains. Flooding was a great
menace first recorded flooding was in Nov 1878, then two in 1880
and 1882 and three in 1886. Flooding occurred almost yearly as
many as six times in 1895, and three in 1900, the Corporation
spending £100 to compensate suffers.
In August 1909 20 streets and 307 houses were flooded on
marshes and seven streets and 87 houses in the Newport district.
120pp Ghetto Inner Pages 10/2/04 11:56 am Page 105.Gordon Shippey
106
DISABLED GHETTO
21st August 1910 and on the 20th May 1912 27 houses where
Flooded. A £60,000 drainage scheme and sewer scheme £33,850
were embarked upon, later a pumping station was built to take
around 26,000,000 gallons per hour. Then over the last few years ICI was allowed to release 20 tonnes of hormone-disrupting chemicals into the Tees estuary every year, even though the Teesmouth marshes is one of Europe’s most important wildlife habitats. Not to mention the nearby chemical plant that has had a history of leaks in and around the dockland area. Recently Northumbrian water and Middlesbrough council played pass the parcel when it came to any form of accountability, both sides merely offering token gestures to the flood victims. However, flooding got worse occurred during heavy rain and or high tides, and sanitation was in a bad state, rats were seen everywhere. One possible reason why this was left out may be so as not to put fear into future developers from the middle east. Then in 2003 while houses where still flooding. Katie Kelly an 8-year old from St John Gate
plunged down an open sewage pipe and nearly drowned. Katie’s
home, which is part of St Johns Gate estate (that Sir Stuart Bell claims is a success), is a virtually new area which was also allowed to be developed on a flood plain, not far from the £1.2 billion Middlehaven site.

A public consultation was set up by the private investors of
Middlehaven, the same company who asked the people of
Stockton to vote on which bridge they would like developed on
the Tees. Only to find that the bridge that was voted for by the
people was rejected by the investors for the one the Directors
wanted in the first place. It was just like the public consultation for Middlehaven. They hired Art Students and turned the meeting place into a day
Nursery, asking the public (all of whom where aged 25+) to paint
and makes things out of paper and cardboard (like a teapot, a
large fish, a space ship etc..) for the Middlehaven project (I am
not kidding) the people look shell shocked as they thought it was
going to be a question and answer session. One man was there
because his business of 40 years was being taken away because of
the development, and he was given next to nothing in order to get
out of the away so they can bulldoze, this he just found insulting.
When the Art Student asked for ideas, I said “Can I design an
Ark Sir, so that we can all get on board when this places floods!”
This meeting was simply set up to divert any real challenge away
from the issue.
During our flood campaign, in order to deflect us away from
the real issue, Councillor Dryden claimed that we had a personal
120pp Ghetto Inner Pages 10/2/04 11:56 am Page 106.Gordon Shippey
107
DISABLED GHETTO
campaign against him (which it was not). We were trying to give
the council a wake- up call and disagreed with Mr Dryden’s
comments about it being a freak one off, and dismissing it at every
Community council meeting. However, he himself was clearly far
too busy to deal with the flood issue because he had to deal with
a more important personal campaign of his own at that time:
Taken from BBC Online:
BBC NEWS MAY 1ST 2002
Eddie Dryden, a Labour ward councillor, said, “Mr Mallon
doesn’t want to be elected mayor, he wants to be elected Sheriff.
“He thinks wearing a big hat and shouting about crime will
change things. It won’t.”