Today has seen a further improvement in restoring power supplies and in the major flood alleviation projects at Romsey and Winchester.
Hopefully by tonight the A34 culvert scheme at Winchester will be finished. The M3 scheme at Winchester should also finally be completed tonight. These schemes in Winchester have clearly begun to have a beneficial effect, and along with the successful move of the Park Avenue Flood barrier, reduced the risk to properties in the city centre. I am also pleased to be able to say that we have established good supplies of sandbags thanks to support from the military who continue to provide a very helpful resource to support the Councils and the Agencies in dealing with issues.

HCC has also successfully completed the construction of a temporary raised road surface on Andover Road to allow traffic to pass over flood water flowing across the old road level, and this has allowed us to re-open this important route in and out of Winchester to the north.
There has been much media interest in this story today – and this is a piece of innovative engineering in practice, designed and carried out by HCC Highways with support from our Operation Resilience contractors.
It is hoped to extend the treatment to other similar flood affected sites over the next couple of weeks. This will be a key part of our emerging strategy to try to get access back to “business as usual” whilst accepting that we will have abnormally high ground water levels for some weeks if not months to come.

We have also begun to take the first steps in establishing the recovery work streams, and an early priority will be focussed on helping businesses and households directly affected by the floods to ensure that they are fully aware of potential financial support announced in recent days.

Weather for the coming week is better than last week, but a band of heavier rain is due pass over tonight (10-15mm) then it will be dry with showers until Thursday, when another low pressure system will bring wind and rain, but not of the intensity of last weeks storms. Ground water levels are rising, river levels are more stable, but will continue to rise in the Test catchment. There should be a few night of milder temperatures, which will help with our Highways capacity as gritting will not be needed overnight, meaning drivers can do full days on other maintenance works.

Stuart goes on to say that he and his teams are grateful for…. ”all the kind words and support that you have passed to me and my staff during the flooding events – it does encourage everyone to know that their efforts are acknowledged and appreciated during what has been an immensely challenging time – and it is not over yet.”

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