Water, water everywhere.

Up in Rugeley town there is a small park called Elmore Park with a pool which is fed by Hagley stream. The pool and park is filled with many varieties of ducks and geese as well as being stuffed full of fish, although the council will not let anybody fish it.

There is a weir which runs the water off into a stream which disappears under ground then reappears several times as it passes through the centre of the town where it has been landscaped and received a Charlie Dimmock/Tommy Walsh makeover job. Elmore brook finally re-appears through a large concrete pipe emptying into the canal by the Tanyard narrows. Incidentally locals fish this outfall into the cut with large earth worms for the many trout that exist there which have travelled down the brook from the town pools.

Last year during some extensive rain and flooding, a section of ‘piped’ stream which runs right through the centre of the pedestrianised section of the town collapsed revealing the stream that had been running underground for decades. Of cause (self n hastey) soon had it cordoned off whilst, decisions were made. In the local paper the council ran a public poll for the future of the stream giving options for people to go on line and vote for including re piping the section and covering it back over, opening up the piped section of stream and making it a stream again and opening it up and making a water feature of it. Nothing else appeared either in the local paper or on Rugeley’s web site. The ‘council workers appeared over the next few months and reinstated the underground pipe work and stream, including the re-instatement of the pedestrian paved surface over the top. And a very good job was done of it as well to the point that after the work was finished, you could not even see the join so to speak.

I read with interest in our local rag that the council have finally decided upon the fate of the ‘town section’ of Elmore brook. After due consideration of all interested parties and taking into account the public vote – the stream is going to be re-opened and made into a water feature! To me an absolute total waste of MY money to complete this unwanted water feature, never mind the monies it has already cost to repair replace and recover the original collapse.

An artists impression of the water feature

To make matters worse, I am sure that within six months of completion, it will be as full of rubbish, shopping trolleys and empty bottles/cans as all the other sections of open stream throughout the town.

Arghhhh there you are thats better now iv’e got that off my chest, and so not as always

If it’s the council, bang ‘em about as much as you want!

Blossom