A beached swale…

Above is a pretty photograph of the gravel swale which is meant to direct water from within the flood retention bund, and slowly release it into the brook.

Looks lovely, right?

Admittedly, not the easiest to walk across - there’s a fairly steep incline from the grass either side down onto the gravel - and those stones are quite chunky.

We’re also a bit puzzled because our understanding from the designs was that there should be a drainage outlet visible at the base of the swale - but nobody would have signed off the work if it hadn’t been completed properly…

So, what’s the issue? Well, take a look at how the swale looks now:

Yes, that’s right, loads of the gravel has collapsed into the stream, almost blocking the flow of water.

No, this isn’t a brand new issue - it’s been like that for a while and our attempts for it to be fixed have been ignored - we can only hope that it’s on the lengthy list of problems that the Council will instruct somebody to fix when they bring contractors back on site.

(Who knows whether it will be the same contractors who built this in the first place, or whether the work will be inspected to try to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again?)

And there’s something else in that second photo.

Just to the left of the collapsed swale, you’ll see a bridge - it’s been derelict and fenced off for many years - we’d asked that if the bund and awkward-to-cross gravel swale were necessary then perhaps a replacement bridge could be installed to help people get across this area.

We still think that would be a fantastic quick win to offset some of these problems, let’s see what happens…

In the meantime, if you’re fed up with the current condition of Perry Park, and think it’s important that the Council keeps its promises to restore the park for use by the community, please sign our petition!