Floods could cost Solihull £6.4m without prevention, engineers warn - The Solihull Observer

Floods could cost Solihull £6.4m without prevention, engineers warn

Solihull Editorial 22nd Jan, 2020 Updated: 22nd Jan, 2020   0

FUTURE floods in Solihull could cost the borough £6.4million without more measures, according to a report prepared by civil engineers for the council.

A feasibility study looking at flood prevention has recommended bunds and walls be built in Dickens Heath and Cheswick Green.

The villages were inundated by flooding two years ago, affecting dozens of homes.

Many residents saw the ground floors of their homes inundated when over a month’s rainfall fell in just one hour on May 27 2018.




The River Cole and the River Blythe burst their banks, affecting a wide area of Solihull.

In an update provide to Councillor Ken Hawkins this week (January 21), Solihull’s cabinet member for the environment, engineers presented the council with its options to prevent future floods.


They recently completed modelling of the Cole and the Blythe, with 2,300 drains cleared out to improved drainage.

The engineers found over a hundred properties could be at risk of a 75-year flood event, using a ‘conservative calculation.’

In Cheswick Green, where the May 2018 floods affected 12 houses, engineers recommend homes on Coppice Walk receive flood resilience improvements.

They also suggest fields to the east of Lady Lane Farm have bunds to prevent floodwater spilling into Salter Lane, with a dwarf flood wall on Tanworth Lane.

A flood bund could go by Dickens Heath Road to protect nearby properties – 22 homes in Dickens Heath were flooded in 2018. Other embankments would be built south of Griffin Lane and east of Rumbush Lane.

Tidbury Green, where 26 homes were flooded in 2018, could see a wall built behind houses on Norton Lane and home improvements on Fulford Road.

The engineers also proposed a new flood wall upstream of the River Cole by Colebrook Road, to protect homes in Nethercote Gardens, Shirley.

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