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00:00A very good morning to you once again, people of Somerset. It's Daniel Mumby, your local
00:05democracy reporter, and you join me on a waterlogged Tuesday morning. I'm standing on the edge
00:11of Long Run Meadow on the western side of Taunton. I had hoped that we could have started
00:16our live stream all the way from the end of this footpath, which goes all the way out
00:20to Silk Mills Road near the park and ride, but as you can see from the abundance of puddles,
00:25it's pretty waterlogged from that far on, so we're not going to get as far as the Willow
00:29Cathedral. But myself and my faithful dog Lupin, who is out with me again this morning,
00:35we're going to be with you for the next 10 to 15 minutes or so, hoping we don't run into
00:39too many dog owners, though Lupin's pretty friendly. Essentially what we're going to
00:43be doing this morning is walking alongside the River Tone, which you can just see on
00:47my left here over the bridge leading off into the French Weir section of houses, and we're
00:52going to be talking about the new Taunton Waterways Strategy, which Somerset Council
00:56is currently about to consult upon over the rest of the autumn, ahead of its adoption
01:02before Christmas, and we're going to be talking about that strategy in a brief overview in
01:09the next 10 minutes or so, specifically talking about what it means for Long Run Meadow, this
01:14beloved green space, beloved by park runners, dog walkers, cyclists, and pretty much everyone
01:20who lives in Somerset's county town. It is one of our fantastic green spaces, and while
01:26I don't live in Taunton myself, every time I come to this beautiful town, I always want
01:30to take a few minutes to explore even a small part of it. You may remember the livestream
01:36that we did, I think it was back in April last year, where we got as far as the Silk
01:40Mills Park and Ride, we were talking about French Weir and the Fields in Trust initiative,
01:46essentially ensuring that this green lung on the western edge of Taunton is going to
01:49be held in public hands in perpetuity, protecting it from housing developers as well as commercial
01:56initiatives, and what that means is that we get to walk along these paths unabashed.
02:04As usual with these livestreams, if you have any comments or questions as we go along,
02:08drop them in the comments section, and whatever I don't get to live and in the moment, whilst
02:13keeping a close eye on my faithful dog, I will respond to retrospectively. So, what
02:21really is the Taunton Waterways Strategy in a nutshell? Essentially, it is a very long
02:26document, about 270 pages, which I'm not going to read verbatim because we'll be here for
02:30the rest of the year, which looks at the way in which Taunton's rivers, primarily the Tone,
02:36but also looking at the Mill Stream, the Norton Brook, other rivers that flow in, including
02:41the Sherford Stream out at the southern side of Taunton, and the Bridgewater and Taunton
02:46Canal, which of course runs out beyond the M5, is looking at ways in which they can be
02:52enhanced and regenerated to encourage biodiversity, to make them more accessible for people, whether
03:00it's on foot, by bike, or for those who are less able-bodied, and also tying it in with
03:07ongoing questions about flood prevention as Taunton continues to grow with the Moncton
03:14Heathfield Urban Extension to the north-east, the Orchard Grove development to the west,
03:19which is not a million miles from where we are now, and the Staple Grove Urban Extension
03:25at the north-western side of town, which will see the light of day in the coming years.
03:30And one of the reasons I chose to do this in Long Run Meadow is, if you've been following
03:34our coverage of flood prevention efforts in Taunton, Long Run Meadow is crucial to ensuring
03:41that Taunton town centre doesn't flood. Essentially, whenever we get periods of heavy rain and
03:47large amounts of runoff upstream of here in the Tone catchment, then a lot of that water
03:55is attenuated, I suppose would be the word, it's sort of stored within the meadow, saturated
04:00within the grass and all the other channels, and then as the land dries out it can be gradually
04:05released into the Tone, so that we don't get a repeat of the horrible flooding that we
04:09saw in the early 60s. Yes, Paul, thank you for your comments. I hope that angling is
04:14taken into consideration as part of that strategy, and you will get the chance to have your say.
04:22There is a pre-consultation open at the moment, and I will put a link to that in the resulting
04:27article, and we believe the full consultation will be opening next Monday, the 7th October,
04:32but if you keep your eyes out on the Somerset Council's Citizen Space, then you'll have
04:37the chance to participate. This is a six-week consultation, we're expecting the Executive
04:42Committee to ratify it and bring it formally into the planning policy just before Christmas,
04:49but there may be pushback a little bit as a result of the staffing changes that they're
04:53undergoing at the moment. And again, just to put it into context, for those who don't
04:59know Taunton very well, we're now standing at the eastern edge of Long Run Meadow, we're
05:02just doing a shorter stream today, like I say, the path to Silk Mills Road is, it's
05:07not totally impassable, but I can't easily do it in trainers. Hi Sally, thanks for tuning
05:13in. Yes, we are at Long Run, you can see the picnic barn area in front of us, and the river
05:20just moving away to the west. In fact, we'll probably go as far as crossing the bridge
05:25into French Weir, just to give you an idea of the scale of this. So part of the strategy
05:30is looking, like I say, at the role that Long Run Meadow can play, and part of that
05:37will be enhancing its existing flood prevention. There's been money set aside for quite some
05:44time by the Environment Agency to look at improving the flood defences at Long Run and
05:50Freeze Hill nearby, there's around six million in total, along with improvements to the locked
05:55gates up at Firepool, and part of that flood prevention is designed to ensure that the
06:00ongoing efforts to regenerate the Firepool site can go ahead. There's been all kinds
06:05of future-proofing going on, the site's been raised up so that it's immediately safe from
06:11river flooding from the Tone, but there's also work being done by Wessex Water to future-proof
06:17the site so that if it does get built out within the next few years, and I think we
06:21all hope that it does rather than staying empty, that it will be future-proof in that
06:27sense as well. But it's not just about stopping Taunton from being underwater, it's also
06:33looking at the ways in which the whole of Taunton's waterfront, stretching from Norton
06:41Fitzwarren right through to the canal and beyond the M5, at least a small distance beyond
06:46the M5, can be rejuvenated, looking at creating a kind of central riverside park running right
06:54along both sides of the bank, through the Cole Orchard area, through Goodlands Gardens
07:00– I'm doing it moving upstream rather than down, which is a bit confusing, I'll admit
07:06– and we are very keen to hear your views on the subject of individual areas that need
07:13to be improved, whether it's a new or improved cycle link here and there, or maybe some more
07:19seating areas, maybe some more places for fishing, or something else entirely unrelated
07:25to leisure. Maybe it's a case of, should we plant more trees or should we look at rewilding
07:30other parts of it? And just looking back through the meadow, like I said, there are various
07:34paths reaching off with Somerset College in the background, and we're just going to briefly
07:40move over the bridge here, sticking to the park run route, and if I can keep looping
07:48under control, he's very stimulated this morning. In fact, we'll let this lady come
07:53by before we get over the bridge and round things off. You can see there the Fields in
07:58Trust plaque to ensure that Long Run Meadow is protected in perpetuity. Now we shall start
08:05crossing over the bridge into French Weir Park, and as luck would have it, there's another
08:10dog on the bridge. Good morning. Let those two say hello. Come on Lupin. Thankfully Lupin
08:24has been pretty well behaved on camera today, so there's a good boy. Hopefully this means
08:31that he'll be able to have a nice doze later in the afternoon and I'll be able to concentrate
08:36working from home. So we've just stepped over the bridge, over the River Tone, a series
08:41of bridges that snake across both sides of the river channel in this area, and we've
08:46stepped into the neighbouring French Weir Park, and what we'll do in fact is that we'll
08:52walk towards the Weir to give you a view of that to bring things to a close. So, like
08:57I say, there are many aspects of the consultation. It's intended to tie in with lots of other
09:03efforts that are going on in terms of Taunton's Active Travel Network, the improvements to
09:08the Somerset Spacewalk that goes along the length of the Bridgewater and Taunton Canal.
09:13It can tie into other projects that the Council's looking at with regenerating key sites, including
09:17Firepool, finishing off the work of the Future High Streets Fund that's provided, and crucially,
09:24none of it can happen without your input. We see French Weir roaring ahead of us. What
09:34a sight to behold. I'm just going to move a little further downstream and then I will
09:41wrap things up. Assuming, of course, we don't run into any more four-legged friends. Come
09:51on, Lupin. So, there we have it. I hope that's given a quick whistle-stop tour. We didn't
09:58get quite as far as I'd anticipated for reasons of inclement weather, though, to be fair,
10:03we got farther today than we would have done had I stuck to my original plan and attempted
10:07this yesterday. But, in any case, we will put a link in the description to the article
10:13that we ran when details of the consultation were first announced, and we'll put a link
10:17to the CitizenSpace portal, both in the comments here and in the article that will result from
10:22this live stream, so you can have your say. There's the pre-consultation period, which
10:26was launched ahead of the Taunton Together Festival that happened at the weekend. We
10:31understand the full consultation will be launched on October 7th and we'll be keeping a close
10:35eye on how that develops. In the meantime, this is Daniel Mumby, your local democracy
10:39reporter, hoping you have a fantastic rest of the day, and thank you for joining me this
10:44morning from Taunton. Bye for now.