A popular British YouTuber who recorded himself at the recent floods which have impacted Chalfont St Peter.
The online personality, who goes by the tagline of ‘Henry’s Adventures’, visited the village on Friday, February 9 to show the devastation caused by the heavy rain.
Large parts of the civil parish were [and at the time of writing] and still are cordoned off from the public, as maintenance workers from Thames Water continue to remove any excess water.
Sewage water has also been seen in parts of Chalfont St Peter.
Henry, who has amassed nearly 10,000 subscribers on his YouTube page, walked down various footpaths and roads that were not closed off, which showed how fierce the floods have been.
Many businesses, both national chains and local independent shops, have lost out on customers due to the floods.
In his 15-minute video which has been viewed over 2,000 times, he said: “I remember, over the years, various floods in Chalfont St Peter.
“As a child, I just remember the River Misbourne either being completely dried up or, flooded."
During the video, which is available to watch on YouTube, Henry walks all over the village to show the extent of the damage caused by the flooding, which includes the closed-off section in Market Place, as well as one of the main car parks being nearly covered in water.
Workers from Thames Water can be seen doing their best to remove the excess liquid in the background.
In a chat with many local businesses in the area, they told the Free Press that they were ‘frustrated’, with one restaurant owner admitting he had lost around £20,000 over two days due to the floods.
A Thames Water spokesperson said: “We are sorry to customers impacted by ongoing high water levels and flooding in Amersham/Chalfont St Peter.
“The excessively heavy rain that our region has experienced since early January means the groundwater and river levels are very high in this area at the moment and the ground is saturated.
“All these issues combined mean there is nowhere for further rain or other flow from nearby land to go and therefore our sewers are struggling to cope.
“Our top priority now is to work with the Environment Agency (EA) and Local Authorities (who manage river flooding and local drainage respectively) to stop any further property flooding from occurring.
“Our teams are on site and working hard round the clock to install large temporary pumps that will help create some space in our sewers by maximising flows and subsequently get them back to working normally.
“We also have our Customer Representative team on-site answering customer questions and offering support where they can.
“The impact we have on our local environment is very important to us and we are working with the EA to minimise this.
“We are utilising our fleet of tankers to prevent any further pollution and to assist with the removal of the excess water.”
The floods are primarily caused by the River Misbourne overflowing when there is heavy rainfall, which could cause issues with sewage systems.
A Thames Water spokesperson continued: “Heavy rainfall can have an instant impact on our sewer systems but larger catchments have a slower response.
“This means there can be a delay between it raining and the flow arriving at the overflow point.
“Although we regard any discharge of untreated sewage as unacceptable, and are working hard to make them unnecessary, this will take time.
The overflows are designed to operate automatically when the sewer network and sewage works are about to be overwhelmed and release diluted wastewater into rivers rather than letting it back up into people’s homes.
“It is the way the system is designed to operate.”
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