Back in 2014 Southcote was hit by a 1 in a 100 year flood. The Holy brook burst its banks and flooded some of the low lying properties just to the north.
It was pretty harrowing to see the people whose houses were flooded and who spent months having their homes dried out and made habitable again.
Reading borough council raised the banks of the brook to prevent it happening again.
When I was the council’s employee I had the job of resurfacing the path through Southcote linear park. I walked along that path after the 2014 flood and noticed it had been raised as part of the flood prevention efforts but noticed a low lying area and pointed it out. If we ever had a flood like the one we’d just seen then the Holy brook would flood again and the properties flooded last time would flood again. And 10 years later, in early January the brook did indeed flood. That one in a hundred year flood had repeated itself in 10 years. And it poured over the low lying part of the path, eroding the surface. And the property affected 10’years earlier was flooded again. The level didn’t quite reach the 2014 level, but the level remained high for many weeks.
This time the council and the Environment agency were working side by side to solve the problem. I went down to have a look at the work today.
I’m glad I don’t live in the houses at risk of flooding, but I’m astonished at the work they’ve carried out.
They’ve felled quite a lot of trees and covered a length of the bank of the river with tons of demolition rubble and covered it in clay. It looks absolutely hideous, and it’s spoilt a fair length of the brook. 
Rural Reading 