April | 2012 | Multi-Story Water

Eastville and Frome Walk This Sunday!

Hello everybody. We’ve come across something you may be interested in this Sunday. Its not specifically related to the Multi-Story Water project, but is incredibly good timing for people to walk the area and the Frome and begin thinking about what improvements might be made to the area’s sometimes wonderful and sometimes ugly water resources and features. Below is the blurb. Alison, from our team will be going on the walk so you’ll meet her there if you go. Please let Geoff Haslam of the RSA know if you’d like to come on [email protected]

M32 – Connecting Communities

The M32 has two distinguishing features; it is the shortest motorway in the UK, and it reaches further into the city than any other.

When it was designed and constructed it was clearly intended to bring economic benefit to the city. It is assumed that it continues to do this, but at some cost to the communities through which is passes.

One of the RSA’s guiding themes is “connecting communities”. The local (south west) group decided some months ago to investigate the potential to ‘re‐connect’ the adjacent communities, if indeed this is what they want. At a meeting some months ago a few volunteers offered to take this idea forward. The next M32 event is planned for Sunday 22 April.

We will meet in the middle of the Eastville roundabout (between Tesco and Eastville Park) at 10:00am.

The walk will involve the length of the space under and beside the motorway from the Merchants Arms to River Street. The aim will be to make creative suggestions for improvements. I expect to finish by 12:30pm at the latest.

Please do let me know if you plan to join us. I attach some background information and look forward to meeting you on the 22nd at 10:00am prompt.

Please contact Geoff Haslam for more information and to register your intention to attend – [email protected]

Meet Melvin Wood, the man from the Environment Agency…

Melvin is one of the EA’s technical specialists, and he knows all about the Eastville sluice gates and the heavy concrete engineering that the River Frome is subjected to as it flows up to them. Melvin’s enthusiasm for concrete (a substance which – let’s face it – many of us find pretty ugly!) comes from years of training and experience, but it’s also quite infectious!

As Melvin explains it, the river has to be “canalised” in the way it is, with sheet metal piling, concrete struts, and the rest of it, in order that the river’s flow up to the sluices is orderly and controlled. This means that the Frome can safely be channelled underground at this point, to flow in culverts toward the city centre, where it connects with the Floating Harbour and the Avon. Also at the Eastville sluices is the mouth of a giant Interceptor Tunnel (it’s just below the little red-brown hut in this picture), which in flood conditions will siphon off excess water and send it rushing off down five miles of piping to the Avon Gorge: that way the underground culverts don’t get flooded (that would cause chaos at street level, with water coming up through the ground!). So basically this engineering in Eastville is vital to the safety and smooth functioning of the rest of the city. And we don’t just need to take Melvin’s word for this: Jeff Neal, one of the hydrologists we’ve met from Bristol University’s Geographical Sciences department, confirms these details. Cities are basically big, man-made machines, and they need big structures to operate smoothly.

The thing is, of course, that however important and cleverly designed this all is, it’s not particularly pleasant to live with. It’s hardly surprising if people living in this area feel a “disconnect” from the river, given the way it is fenced off in the run-up to the sluices (and flows underneath a motorway – another of the city’s key arteries…).

How could all this be made a bit less grim and offputting, we might ask ourselves? Could some creative interventions help us look differently at it?