FLOODS & SUDS


West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) in the UK recently refused a planning application on the grounds of flood risk. The proposed development included the construction of just a single dwelling within the village of Standlake. However, local campaigners were able to argue against the proposal with the benefit of groundwater level data provided by a continuous level logger that had been installed in the garden of an adjacent property.


In this case, the developer took occasional manual measurements that were found to be of limited value in comparison with continuous readings from a professional borehole logger from OTT HydroMet.


“The groundwater level data was critically important to our case,” explains local campaigner Paula Gaffney. “The village of Standlake is heavily affected by flooding, so this is a major consideration in any proposed new development, but without evidence, it is difficult to draw reliable conclusions.


“For this reason, we dug two boreholes adjacent to the proposed development site and rented an OTT ecoLog 1000 water level logger from OTT HydroMet to take measurements automatically every 15 minutes, 24/7.


“This generated a continuous data stream that provided a wealth of information on local groundwater conditions, particularly when combined with rainfall data from the nearby Brize Norton meteorological station.


“Perhaps the most striking conclusion was the stark contrast between our continuous data stream and the developer’s occasional manual observations from the borehole that they had constructed in the middle of the proposed development site. In particular, the WODC Lowlands Planning Sub


44 | June 2024 | www.draintraderltd.com


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