Good morning to residents along Hargill Rd and Railway Street in Howden-le-Wear.  Some of you might have received letters from us notifying you that we are undertaking surveys on private land.  I wanted to explain what we are hoping to achieve.

We want to reconfigure the sewer network within Howden-le-Wear to lower the likelihood of flooding.  This will allow us to better manage the surface water which falls during the rain.

To do this, we may need to undertake a lot of work within Hargill Road itself, meaning traffic and access could be difficult.  Instead of doing this, we are looking at the opportunity to run a new sewer behind the terraced homes and into the field.  This sewer would connect into our existing pipes near Howden Beck, near to the Primary School.  

The topographic surveys will let us know the shape of the land and determine if this is a viable alternative, one which would be far less bothersome to the traffic and highway.

Please let me know if you have any questions.  

Loren

Good morning to our customers in Crook.  I hope you have been making the most of the wonderful weather we've had recently, and that you were able to do outdoor activities in the glorious sunshine.

I wanted to provide you an update on my previous message from June, which is I am not going to be able to meet the start date I'd anticpated previously.  So, rather than starting in September or Octoboer, it will likely be three months later.

I had been rushing to schedule a customer event in late July or early August.  But instead, we will be doing this in Autumn nearer the construction start date.  I'm in discussions with the Hartside Academy to hold the event there.

Please don't forget to click on "follow project" above to be e-mailed when our Community Portal is update.  

Have a wonderful week and speak with you soon.

Loren

Good morning.

A customer in Crook on Wednesday asked me about all the paint on the roadway around High Hope Street.  This was almost certainly our engnineers using sensing devices to locate the position of underground utilities.  This is done with different types of metal detectors and sometimes ground penetrating radar.  This allows us to design a new sewer in a location that won't clash with other utilities, potentially causing interruption to your other services like electricity or telephone.

The team here at Northumbrian Water is in the process of pulling together letters to go around to homes in immediate area where we envision construction.  These will give details of customer events we are also trying to schedule, probably for late July or early August.  If our proposals are acceptable to the community, I would anticipate starting construction at both Hargill Rd and High Hope Street in late September.

Loren

Good afternoon to Crook and Howden-le-Wear!

Did any of you get our Rainwise card in the mail last week or over the weekend?  If so, I would love to hear what you thought of the message.

In addition to what Northumbrian Water would like to do to make Crook more Rainwise, do you think you might also play a role?

Good morning, everyone.

I wanted to let you know that we are looking seriously at opportunities for flood risk reduction in proximity of High Hope Street in Crook and Hargill Road in Howden-le-Wear.  To further investigate, we are completing surveys over the coming week, so you may see more activity than you typically might be used to.    

These surveys are to measure the sewer network, map the ground surfaces and check for underground utilities.  This is important as these details would help us design a construction project to reduce the risk of flooding and pollution in your communities.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Loren
 

Good afternoon!

I am happy to announce that we have identified two very good opportunities to become more Rainwise around Crook and Howden-le-Wear.  This would involve modifying our sewer network in the areas of High Hope Street and Hargill Road so that less rainfall enters the sewer.  Controlling the amoutn of water entering the sewer is very important to reduce the likelihood of flooding, as well as improving water quality and pollution.

We envision this work happening in 2018, so I will be in touch again soon with further details.  I hope you all have a happy Easter holiday.

I wanted to take this chance to wish all of you following this project a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I will be in touch again after the New Year to let you know the progress of our Rainwise activities in Crook.  I am happy to share at this point that we have identified some really good opportunities for projects within the Crook area over the coming years.  And with your participation, we can really work hard to make Crook more Rainwise.

Good morning, everyone. I hope this update finds you well.

Since I last spoke with you, we have continued to look at the three areas mentioned below for opportunities to remove surface water from our network.  This is really important to do as it reduces the risk of flooding as well as the likelihood of pollution.  Our investigations will continue through the first few months of 2018, at which point we should be able to tell you if we envision Rainwise projects in Crook for the following year.

Removing surface water can be tricky sometimes, but it's certainly not impossible.  If you would like to see what kinds of projects Rainwise has lead to in the past, you can review our case studies at the link below.  Although everywhere is different, it should give you an idea of the styles of projects we can accomplish, especially when we hear back from our customers and really understand what happens on the ground when it rains hard.

The website also has some ideas about how you can become more Rainwise around your own home, which collectively can have an impact on you and your neighbour's resilience to flooding in the future.

https://www.nwl.co.uk/your-home/your-services/Rainwise.aspx

I will keep you all informed here on the Community Portal, especially once we identify a Rainwise project which we want to do in your area.  You can also select "Follow This Project" above and get an e-mail whenever an update is published.

One of the key messages of our Rainwise programme is lowering the volume of rainwater which enters the sewer. It is important to do this as it affects the risk of flooding, as well as the likelihood of pollution.

As you may have noticed, we undertook surveys of our sewer network throughout the early Summer. The goal of this was to find where we might have surface water entering the sewer in large quantities, and to determine if it would be possible to remove this water. Although it can be very tricky to undertake surface water removal, it may be possible and to everyone's benefit, so we are looking at this now.

Some of the key areas we are looking at include Firtree Drive, Hargill Road and High Hope Street. I would love to hear from anyone who lives or works in these areas, and for you to share your experiences of flooding or the management of surface water in the area.

Good morning,

I found myself out in the garden the past weekend, and it got me thinking about managing surface water around my own home.  Have you read the top tips in the Rainwise brochures here along the right menu bar?

A vast amount of perfectly clean rainwater gets washed away to our treatment works via downcomer pipes.  Much of this could be diverted and allowed to soak away naturally, or stored in a rain barrel for use in gardening.  This would serve both to free up capacity for flood risk reduction, but also lower the costs of running clean water through a sewage treatment works.

I hope you all find yourself in your gardens soon, and that the sun is out shining bright and warm.