Just how dry is your home?

13 Sep

13th September 2022

As we investigate the causes and effects of the local groundwater problems, one word is keeps coming up: flooding. If it seems strange to be concerned about flooding when we’ve been complaining about the lack of groundwater, consider this…

Sea levels are rising. Ice caps and glaciers are melting. A recent article in the Guardian indicates that a sea-level rise based on current rates of ice loss will result in an increase of 27cm, but if that rate of increase becomes the norm, it very soon becomes 78cm. Read the article here, and remember that mean sea level is not the same thing as the level of a spring high tide with a following wind pushing a surge down the North Sea.

So just how far above sea-level is your home? We live in the flat lands and it’s not easy to see where the land rises and falls. If this topic has caught your attention, you will find this website of interest: it shows very precisely the altitude of different areas of our village – just point and click. That’s the level above current mean sea-level, not necessarily the level above the spring-surge sea-level in 10 or 30 years time. (Northstowe has a planned build-out of 20-30 years…)

You will also be able to see how the height of the land falls between the middle of Longstanton and the busway on the far side of Northstowe, which may help explain why the water in the aquifer is all going one way.

Village fury! Did Northstowe developers sell our aquifer?

1 Aug

1st August 2022

Not really our style of headline, is it? After all, we’re not the Daily Dafty. So what lies behind it?

First, the obligatory recap of things that are undeniable:

  1. Since 2015, Northstowe phase 1 has been built.
  2. Since 2015, the groundwater levels in adjacent Longstanton have fallen to the point where they have virtually dried up.
  3. Since 2015, developers at Northstowe have created two large ‘amenity’ lakes and filled them with water. (An ‘amenity’ lake is one that is created for recreational purposes or visual impact, rather that as a necessity to ensure good drainage and protect against flooding.)

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