When does a ditch become a watercourse!?

[Doing it for the kids]

Planners are arguing that every ditch is a water course here but don’t seem to make it very clear as to what’s what.

When does one become the other and vice versa.

I always assumed a ditch carried winter water but was dry in the summer and a watercourse was an all year round course for running water.

There interpretation is more any depression in the ground can be assumed as a watercourse!?

 

[steveR]

Planners are arguing that every ditch is a water course here but don’t seem to make it very clear as to what’s what.

View attachment 1030198

When does one become the other and vice versa.

I always assumed a ditch carried winter water but was dry in the summer and a watercourse was an all year round course for running water.

There interpretation is more any depression in the ground can be assumed as a watercourse!?

You can pipe a ditch...?

 

[tullah]

Our winter watercourses running at five litres a second sometimes become dry ditches by May and other seasons they'll just trickle all summer.

We have some dry ditches too since various drainage schemes were done.
I still leave a two metre margin even though no hedge exists. It's not worth the hassle arguing with the RPA.

 

[Highland Mule]

Planners are arguing that every ditch is a water course here but don’t seem to make it very clear as to what’s what.

View attachment 1030198

When does one become the other and vice versa.

I always assumed a ditch carried winter water but was dry in the summer and a watercourse was an all year round course for running water.

There interpretation is more any depression in the ground can be assumed as a watercourse!?

Why not read the legislation they reference ?

 

[jpd]

ordinance survey maps
i have water rising in mine crosses the road into mine
flows short distance into next door
flows back in to mine and on into different next door and away
it only shows up on map when it returns into mine from next door

 

[Doing it for the kids]

Why not read the legislation they reference ?

“Ordinary watercourse” means a watercourse that does not form part of a main river.

that's pretty much all it says?!

 

[steveR]

Our winter watercourses running at five litres a second sometimes become dry ditches by May and other seasons they'll just trickle all summer.

We have some dry ditches too since various drainage schemes were done.
I still leave a two metre margin even though no hedge exists. It's not worth the hassle arguing with the RPA.

Or fill the ditch in??

 

[Sid]

Ditches run into ponds, watercourses run into lakes.


Or is it the other way round

 

[Bogweevil]

Ur-ditches flow uphill, there are several in Devon

That's not very helpful is it?

Consider this:

An Ordinary Watercourse is any river, stream, brook, ditch, drain, culvert, pipe and any other passage through which water may flow which is not designated as Main River. It does not have to be recorded on a map to be an ordinary watercourse and commonly is not.

Source: Surry County Council

 

[betweenthelines]

A watercourse takes water from a spring, a ditch takes water from a drain.

 

[Doing it for the kids]

A watercourse takes water from a spring, a ditch takes water from a drain.

So a ditch isn’t a watercourse!?

 

[jpd]

i have drains with spring water running in them
are they watercourses?

 

[toquark]

I had the man from SEPA tell me that a watercourse can be defined as being unimpeded flow to the sea. So when I asked about a recently dug ditch I’d put in, he said if you drop a twig in it and it can flow to the sea, it’s a watercourse and should be treated as such.

He’s not been invited back.

 

[Sid]

i have drains with spring water running in them
are they watercourses?

Majority of my land drains pick up spring water. These "drains" run all year round.

 

[Kevtherev]

A ditch isn’t classed as a water course I don’t think well the sort that surround fields and become a dry ditch in summer.
A watercourse would be a stream or such that’s naturally occurring and runs all year round????

 

[Doing it for the kids]

A ditch isn’t classed as a water course I don’t think well the sort that surround fields and become a dry ditch in summer.
A watercourse would be a stream or such that’s naturally occurring and runs all year round????

See you are using logic, this doesn’t sit well with the office boys.

I agree with your principle and tempted to call them out on it

 

[Bruce Almighty]

If it’s a blue line on an OS map it’s a water course

 

[farmerm]

I would consider a ditch to be a manmade drainage feature and a watercourse to be naturally occurring though man may have undertaken work to contain or redirected it...

Now... if it were in Scotland or Ireland it might be a sheugh....



sheugh (plural sheughs)

1. (Ireland, Scotland) A ditch, especially a field boundary ditch usually used to drain fields and mark their boundaries.
2. (Scotland, colloquial) The space between the buttocks.The sweat is running down the sheugh of my arse.
3. (Ireland, colloquial) The Atlantic ocean, the sea.

​

 

[jpd]

i thought a ditch was where boris johnson could be found dead

 

[Highland Mule]

Land Drainage act:

Flood and Water Management Act:

Seems that, legally at least, a ditch is both a watercourse and an ordinary watercourse.