Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 5 Rhagfyr 1973.
The idea is becoming more and more incredible. Now we are to have locks in the busiest shipping lane in the world. One of the causes of greatest concern is ship collisions in the Channel and now we are to have locks.
The point I want to make is serious. It is the one item in the Bill that gives me concern. I have spent a morning with the Borough Engineer of Folkestone discussing the proposal that the drainage from the terminal site should go into one of the small streams in Folkestone. A lagoon would be produced on the site. The surface water would go into the flow tank—six acres of pond. I suggest my hon. Friends should secure the trout fishing rights. It will then go into a stream which runs beside Horn Street, not into the sea but into the Royal Military Canal. It will be used as a feeder.
I asked the borough engineer to work out the figures for me. He was on the telephone to me this morning. When he discussed the matter with the Department it suggested that it could allow for a 30-year storm. I have been in Folkestone for 15 years. In that time we have had two 30-year storms and one 100-year storm. One of those completely flooded the main street. I need assurances about this prospect of dealing with the surface water of 300 acres—a golf course which has virtually to be covered with an impervious material. The borough engineer has worked out a figure of 3½ million gallons of water an hour.
The Library has been good enough to give me an idea of what a river of 3½ million cubic feet an hour is and the House will be as surprised as I am. It says that the following rivers have a mean flow of approximately 3½ million gallons per hour—the Itchin, the Lea, the Cam, the Medway, the Tamar and the Derwent. It would be impracticable to expect such a vast quantity of water to go into the Royal Military Canal.
Serious consideration must be given to directing the water into a separate outlet into the sea. Equally, there should be further engineering considerations about whether to build a Channel tunnel which goes towards the sea and whether the drainage should not go down the tunnel before spilling out into the sea.
I have taken longer than I intended, but I hope I have been able to make the points which affect my constituents to a great degree. I hope that the House will not accept the Liberal Party's idea of building a causeway, or, indeed, accept its amendment, because that would only set back the project. That would mean that we should have to endure a build-up of traffic en route which would make life intolerable in my area.