Using Ballast To Get Under Potter Bridge

[Mouldy]

1 hour ago, Broads01 said:

Yes I know, I was only being silly. Joking apart, do you think passage under Ludham for boats with your airdraft and similar (many hundreds of them) is getting harder?

Without a doubt.  We need 8’3” to clear Ludham and looking at the river levels since the end of October, when the first of the storms hit, I’d guess that we’d have had few (if any)opportunities to navigate under the bridge since.

Something needs to be done - I’m not entirely convinced that global warming is the reason behind rising river levels on the northern rivers in particular.  There must be something else influencing the change, whether it is a lack of dredging, more water run off from streams and rivers running into the Broadland waterways or something else.

I don’t have the local knowledge to say with any authority, merely to speculate, but I think the lads at Richos will have a busy season at the bridge if levels don’t recede soon.

[marshman]

I think I saw on a post quite sometime ago, think it might have been ExPilot, who keeps a close eye on Potter, the figure on how much water levels have risen over the last decade or so or perhaps two. Somebody,  somewhere will know!

Don't forget too that this year has been exceptional from a rainfall point of view and even in the Wensum part of Norwich, levels have been high. I saw a picture the other day that it had been touch and go at New Mills a week or so back with the Wensum up nearly to the top.

The water meadows at Postwick Bends have also flooded and I have not noticed that for a quite a few years - don't think they are a great deal to do with the fabled Bure Hump but could indicate problems releasing too much water from the Bure if you have a blocking tide in the Yare. That fresh water has to go somewhere and we have to be careful of making hasty judgements - or so I believe. Its a fear of the Law of Unintended Consequences!

[CambridgeCabby]

Maintaining or lack of of the river system certainly hasn’t helped as far as river levels are concerned but this years storm following storm and seemingly never ending rainfall being due to a quirk in the weather or due to global warming the levels have been at a previously unrecorded high ; Ludham bridge has been showing a clearance of around 7ft2” for quite a while now. LBBY has been flooded yet again , and we have all read about the flooding in Potter and Horning and in many cases witnessed it ourselves also.

The BA still lists the height of Ludham bridge as being an average of 8ft6” a level very rarely seen nowadays it’s about time the BA guide on bridge clearances is updated Potter is still listed at 6ft6” !!

[MauriceMynah]

11 minutes ago, CambridgeCabby said:

The BA still lists the height of Ludham bridge as being an average of 8ft6” a level very rarely seen nowadays it’s about time the BA guide on bridge clearances is updated Potter is still listed at 6ft6” !!

No CC, don't give them that escape route.  Instead, it's about time they did the dredging to reinstate those self admitted clearances 

[marshman]

Then MM you had better express your concerns to the EA who approve all dredging, and certainly on that scale - the BA are just a small part of the equation!!

[YnysMon]

Talking about the Wensum, I couldn’t help noticing how that river was well over the banks around the village of Lenwade (just north of Norwich) last week. I’m sure the EA must manage the flow of the river to avoid flooding the city.