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FILM & PHOTOGRAPHY:
TO KEEP THE WATER FLOWING
Documentary film
Myriad was commissioned to produce this 27 minute documentary film as part of an AHRC-funded academic research project. The film documents and communicates the work and role of Internal Drainage Boards across low-lying areas of England and Wales whose work, often behind the scenes, manage the flow of water across vast swathes of the UK.
This film is being used by both ADA the Association of Drainage Boards and by the boards themselves to communicate their work both within the industry and to a public audience.
Watch the full film below. If you wish to hold a public screening or community exhibition please contact us for more information.
Innes Thomson
“An IDB is a small local authority effectively that’s been created for the unique job of managing water levels and flood risk management in England, Wales and Scotland. We find drainage boards predominantly in the lowest lying areas covering about 1.2 million hectares representing roughly about 10 per cent of England.”
The 112 IDBs in England play a key role in reducing flood risk to over 600,000 people and nearly 900,000 properties. They also operate and maintain over 500 pumping stations, 22,000 km of watercourse, 175 automatic weed screen cleaners and numerous sluices and weirs. They work with local planning authorities to help them with development control and planning decisions. They operate predominantly under the Land Drainage Act 1991 and have permissive powers to undertake work to secure drainage and water level management of their districts.
“IDBs have been around for many hundreds of years and the first records we have go back to 1252 and the time of Henry III, and Romney Marsh in the south of England, and the early 1300s, with Robert the Bruce in the central lowlands of Scotland.”
Chief Executive, Association of Drainage Authorities. Floodplain of the River Trent, south of Nottingham
Chief Executive, Association of Drainage Authorities. Floodplain of the River Trent, south of Nottingham
The Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA) has been in existence since 1937, and was established to watch over, support and promote its members’ interests at a national level. Today, it represents a much broader church of water level and flood risk management across the country, and includes among its members national agencies like the Environment Agency, internal drainage boards, local authorities, and regional flood & coastal committees. ADA’s Associate Members include contractors, consultants and suppliers to the industry.
“The future for ADA’s members, I think, is a really positive one despite our changing climate. We’re going to be working very much more with water resource management, as well as flood management, and making sure the environment, people and the economy all work very closely together.”
Nathan Culpan
“Well, it’s hard to define my role, where it starts and where it stops. But predominantly I look after three workforces: so, one for the Ouse & Derwent which is the area that we are in at the moment, Ainsty (2008) and Foss (2008) IDB areas. Each of those areas has a workforce, a direct workforce that works for the board. I am involved with supervision on delivery of works, compliance with biodiversity, and just trouble shooting, and every day run of the mill works that we come across – you know, seasonal.
The other side of my role is to make the technical comments on our planning responses; so any building that happens within the drainage board area I will look at the technical details, certainly if it’s within nine metres of a water course … We make sure that we can still carry out our duties once a building has been put in place whatever had been applied for. Other than that, I also represent the board or the work on the ground at the board meetings. So, I have to relay what we have carried out on a water course or the water courses and then report to the board to show progress reports.
Again, going further into it, I’m involved with plant renewal, putting business cases to the board so they can, you know, see whether its justifiable what we are proposing - making tea and various other things, cleaning toilets – it never ends. So, there is never a dull moment in my role …There is no two days the same, you know. We take the rough with the smooth. Some days are difficult, other days it’s a pleasure to be out in the fields, in and among nature, and dealing with customers. So, there are many aspects that I enjoy about the job but it’s the variation I think that really appeals to myself.”
Assistant Engineer, York Consortium of Drainage Boards. Former British Sugar Factory and Manor School site Boroughbridge Road, York.
Director of Engineering and Technical Services, Witham & Humber Drainage Boards. Digby Fen Pumping Station, Witham First District IDB
Martin Shilling
“Water level management is basically what it says on the tin really. You manage a water level within an artificial system. You are providing a service … to those owners and occupiers of the adjacent land and fields. Sometimes they want more water, sometimes they want less ... If they’re on sandy soils they expect us to be able to provide water, or at least not get rid of the water so that they can irrigate crops and obviously the different soil types influence the crops they are growing. But on Fens, such as these, they’re predominantly clay based, so they tend to be a bit wetter, and they hold the water a bit better. So, here it’s invariably getting rid of water.”
IDBs are public bodies that manage water levels in areas of special drainage need. They manage water levels for agricultural and environmental needs within their district as well as reduce the risk of flooding to people and property.
“This is an entirely man-made scenario really to be fair. If it wasn’t for man over the last 280 odd years, it would be just a permanently wet fen, sedge fen. But obviously over the last 280 years through various means, it’s been drained. So, now you’ve got a multi-million-pound industry that relies on the Boards to manage their water for them.”
IDBs make a significant contribution to the sustainable use of parts of England and Wales with special drainage needs, delivering an efficient, cost-effective service to the community and providing water level management on a daily basis to the catchments they serve. Pressures from a growing population and climate change will only increase this dependency.
“Water level management is going to become more important to the purpose of the Boards. We are sometimes hampered a bit really by people thinking that Drainage Boards just pump water out. And it comes as a big surprise to many people, even within the industry, that we actually manage water levels, and we have to manage it both ways, both coming into the Fens and out of the Fens. And that’s really because of the change in rainfall patterns predominantly.”
Tom Dundon
John Barnes-Tee: “I think … the nice thing about this job is that most of the departments and most of the boards, they have got the teams, usually have got very good skill sets amongst the chaps, and a lot of them are different skill sets. So, there is always somebody that can do or knows, you know, and that is where the strengths lie. Whereas other jobs I’ve been on, the teams aren’t there, or the structure isn’t there. You haven’t got the strength to carry on and do all that work and get things done because, in this sort of environment, with the changes with the seasons, sometimes you have to have a big skill set to get the job done. Because when winter comes … things are horrible out there, and wet, and conditions are changing. You need to be very adaptable and quite clued up.”
Plant Operator,
Foss 2008 IDB
Drainage Operative Ouse & Derwent IDB. Clay Drain near South Duffield, Selby, North Yorkshire
Here is a pair of tracked excavators, each weighing around 16 tonnes and equipped with 800 mm wide tracks to help with traction and low ground pressures in wet conditions. These machines are used to cut and clear vegetation from the larger channels maintained by IDBs, having a reach of some 11-12 m, 3 m wide. They cut the weed using a 3 m wide wire basket fitted with a reciprocating cutter, like a giant hedge shears. However, they can also be fitted with a bucket to undertake excavation work to either de-silt the watercourses or in the construction of new structures such as the weed screen in Ruskington Fen in the right-hand picture.
Paul Simpson: “Once you get into a rhythm and once you’ve been on it a while, it becomes so natural. It’s part of you. It’s like an extra arm. So, yeah, I find it very easy to use once you’ve been on them, you know. It’s like anything, the more you’re on it the easier it is. But, yeah, they will do anything you want them to do if you use them correctly.”
Former Works Foreman,
Ouse and Derwent IDB
Tracked Excavators. Ruskington Fen Weedscreen, Witham First District IDB