A MOTHER was devastated to find her daughter’s grave had flooded and she is concerned that plans for new houses in the area will make the problem worse.

Janet Dineen, 63 lives in Didcot and her daughter Sarah Swanborough is buried in East Hagbourne cemetery.

Sarah was not expected to make it to her first birthday when she was born with brain damage, curvature of the spine and epilepsy.

Her mother Ms Dineen explained she almost died giving birth to Sarah and she spent the first five years of her life in intensive care, before Ms Dineen cared for her until she died age 23 with pneumonia in January 2010, just two days before her birthday.

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Ms Dineen went to visit her daughter’s grave at St Andrew’s cemetery to pay her respects on the anniversary of her daughter’s death and what would have been the week of her daughter’s birthday. However, when she arrived, she found the cemetery flooded.

Ms Dineen said: “I went up there last week and it was like a river, it was absolutely flooded.”

She added: “My daughter is laying in water up there and it is not only her, but lots of others are as well.”

This is not the first time Sarah’s grave has flooded and Ms Dineen is worried plans for a new housing development will make the flooding problem in East Hagbourne worse.

She said: “They are going to start building houses just behind the cemetery and that is absolutely flooded as well.”

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Greenlight developments submitted plans for 74 new homes on land close to Hagbourne Church of England Primary School in Main Road and in January 2018 outline planning permission was granted.

The application site is located on agricultural land on the western edge of the village of East Hagbourne on land adjacent to the Village Hall on Main Road.

74 homes have been proposed for this land and 40 per cent of which are set to be affordable homes.

Pedestrian paths and cycle links have also been proposed in the application.

However, the land which is set to have 74 new homes is currently flooded.

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Residents in the area have also previously objected to the homes over fears of East Hagbourne being swallowed by Didcot.

In October 2017, the South Oxfordshire District Council planning committee discussed the 187 responses that objected to the proposal of 74 homes in a meeting.

One concern that was raised was that the site ‘often floods and never really dries out and drains to other areas in village’ the comment also added ‘it is called Lake Road for a reason.’

Under this note it states the ‘council is aware of flood risk and sends warning letters to W Hagbourne residents.’

A spokesperson for South Oxfordshire District Council said: “This application is currently under consideration.

“Officers will take any potential flood risk into account when publishing their report and making a recommendation.”

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