When the Trustees of Mytholmroyd Community Centre were considering how best to improve their car park, they wanted a robust and sustainable solution. Part of the car park is currently being used as the contractor’s compound for the Mytholmroyd Flood Alleviation Works and they are due to vacate the site by the end of 2020.
Mytholmroyd Community Centre is all about the local community and improving the lives of residents and businesses in this part of the Calder Valley. This was foremost in their minds, especially concerning issues and challenges around flooding, when looking at how the car park could be designed.
As this was the first time that they had embarked on such a scheme they sought help from Slow The Flow. Working as a charity to advance the education of the public in Natural Flood Management (NFM), Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), and other renewable methods of managing the environment, we were delighted to support them in the design of this community space.
Following a few meetings, socially distanced of course, Slow The Flow agreed to finance the development of a masterplan for the car park as part of their Opportunity Mapping Project in Mytholmroyd http://slowtheflow.net/nfm-suds-opportunities/ . Many small‑scale Natural Flood Management (NFM) and Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) interventions like this, taken together, can result in a significant amount of water being temporarily stored, or attenuated, during storm events.
The Community Centre employed landscape architects 2B Landscape Consultancy Limited to develop a plan and once delivered this will form a central element for them in accessing funding to carry out the works themselves.
This work is a perfect example of how Slow The Flow can support local organisations in developing sustainable solutions to managing their land to mitigate some of the changes in water flows caused by climate change.
If you have a project like this and you want to know more about how NFM and SuDS might benefit your community space, please visit http://slowtheflow.net/you-can-slow-the-flow-public-spaces/