THE Environment Agency is the authority with full responsibility for maintaining the main river watercourses which are the basis of flood alleviation for our village.

The agency has written to say in September/October it will carry out its “annual” weed clearance along the main river watercourses which it specifies as Heybridge Hall Ditch, Langford Ditch and Holloway Road Ditch.

We have to say, what about the other ditches that are part of the system?

If the usual practice for this work is followed, the agency’s contractors use a system of what they call “hand-brushing”.

This means a contractor with a strimmer cuts the growth at the base of the ditches and a little way up both sides.

Past practice has been to either leave the cuttings, which this year will be substantial, lying in the bottom of the ditches or on the banks of the ditches where the cuttings ultimately fall back into the ditches and subsequently may cause restrictions in the flow.

As most will now know, our flood alleviation ditches all have culverts, built in as an integral part of the system which are as important for the flow of water as the ditches themselves.

There has been no mention of these culverts being cleaned.

They all have their flow capacity seriously reduced by the internal accumulation of silt, debris etc collected within the culverts.

By not doing the work in such a manner so as to clean the ditches and culverts up to the standard they should be to allow the free flow of water away from our village into Sadds Damn and ultimately into the River Blackwater is far from acceptable.

It seems yet again this will be a cost-cutting operation by the Environment Agency, the end result of which will be a waste of time and money as the ditches and culverts will not be left in the free-flowing condition they should be.

Don Benson

Chairman, Heybridge Residents’ Association