Case Studies

York 2015: Anatomy of a Flood Disaster

20 February 2019
York has known devastating flooding many times before. Time and again, the city's defences have been improved and adjusted, as new lessons have been learned – but Christmas 2015 raised the bar once again. Over the course of a few days, York suffered its worst flooding in a generation.

2015 Leeds Commercial Property Flooding: Towards Better Resilience

20 February 2019
Kirkstall Road, one of the main commercial streets in the Leeds, was completely submerged under murky rainwater after an unprecedented downpour on Boxing Day 2015 from Storm Eva.

HS2 set to devastate South Yorkshire neighbourhood

07 February 2019
More than 130 families living on the Shimmer estate in Mexborough, South Yorkshire, may have to leave their homes after the government decided that the HS2 train line should go right through their neighbourhood. Some only moved in days before the route was proposed. They are among 540 homeowners within 100 metres…

Leicestershire Wind Farm

07 February 2019
Plans for a controversial 150ft high wind turbine at Thorpe Satchville near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire have been passed four years after it was built – marking the end to a protracted and agonising planning dispute that has plagued the village for years. The application for the 46 metre (150 ft)…

Newcastle: New Build Property demolished after Coal Mine Discovery

07 February 2019
The Bayfield estate in West Allotment, North Tyneside was built by Bellway Homes in 2011 as part of a larger development of several hundred houses on the east side of Newcastle near Shiremoor. Subsidence and cracking of several homes was first noticed in 2015. Families were originally evacuated in June…

Carlisle: Building a Fortress against the Floods

07 February 2019
Storms Desmond and Eva were two of the most notorious, destructive weather events in recent years. New rainfall records were set in the Lake District for a 24-hour period in December 2015, with 341.4mm recorded on Honister Pass. Cumbria was hit by a conveyer of water which swelled river catchments and bore…

Willenhall: The Longest Limbo for Residents

29 January 2019
Residents living on a housing estate built on contaminated land have endured a 10 year ‘nightmare’ waiting to find out who was responsible for the clean-up. The land in question formed part of the former site of the Willenhall Gas Works, which closed in 1957. The West Midlands Gas Company…