[TringSaint]

Afternoon all.
at the weekend we had a bit of a flood - well more than a bit!
the heavy rain landing on a large arable farm behind our land quickly flowed into a natural depression at our boundary and quickly caused a brook to burst its banks, allowing somewhere in the region of 6-7000 cubic metres of water to spill into our paddocks, rendering them between 6" and 2'+ deep in water - it covered every square inch of our 4 acres and came within 1 inch of entering the house (as well as all of my neighbours).

Our land is known for having a high water table, but that flooding just makes wet patches in the fields which we can cater for, but this was caused by a breach of the brook and from what we can see, the only option is to build a bund along this short river (brook) bank and then down the entire side of our land (c300m) to effectively ringfence the property behind a 2ft high wall of clay (we have an old railway embankment on the other side that gives us protection there.

question is, can I just crack on andf build this in the new year once the ground has hardened up, or do I need to obtain planning consent? I can see for domestic gardens planning consent is needed, but for agri land, there is very little guidance, so any input would be gratefully received.

as for our flood, we are back to normal now and our sheep will be coming back to their home tomorrow after having a lovely mini-break at a friend's farm (he stepped up to the plate brilliantly and sorted us a barn in our hour of need)

[arobwk]

Hi [member=173586]TringSaint[/member].  I think you are likely to need seek PP or notify under permitted dev' procedures.  You may also need "Waste Permissions" from Environment Agency. 


One of my next-door neighbours applied for banks around his fields (and gained PP) while another neighbour didn't bother when building new banks which, in part, affected our common boundary! However, the latter neighbour is on written warning not to p**s me off over anything what-so-ever again in the future. 

(I did some subsequent research on the latter neighbour's waste permissions and find he has actually been fined for waste transgressions in the past !) 

[TringSaint]

Hi Arobwk,

Thanks for that.
Not sure re the waste management bit as the water we want to block will end up in the same place as it would if it flowed over my land - we just want it to go there directly!!

Will look at the PP bit but may also try to get the farmer whose land the water drained from to see if he can assist.

[arobwk]

I have a gardening client who has a very similar problem of surface water collecting on field adjacent and then surging through their garden.  Yes, do speak to farmer neighbour as they may be able and willing to alter their field management to assist.  (My client's problem hasn't been totally solved, but farmer has acknowledged the issue and I understand has taken some measures with regards to cultivation methods on the field.  Time will tell !)


I expect no one will notice (and so will not mind) if you move a wee bit of sod around to reinforce the brook's containing banks, but earth-works can fall into PP territory. 
And if you wish to bring-in material from elsewhere, then you could fall foul of waste-recovery versus waste-disposal issues.  In your case, it would (I believe) be seen as waste recovery (producing a positive agricultural result), but, legally, one needs a waste permit from the EA even so, which would be free for low-level operations/volumes.