The vicarage farm incident – a precautionary tale 

The Vicarage Farm Reservoir incident involved an emergency draw-down of the reservoir, but also involved some serious personal safety issues for the supervising engineer. The paper describes how the structural integrity of the dam was compromised and the actions taken to mitigate the potential consequences, illustrating the roles of the different people and organisations involved. The paper concludes with an overview of some of the issues that can influence or affect safety, primarily of a personal nature but also some environmental topics. It suggests that increased awareness or formal training should be considered for panel engineers to broaden and develop their abilities.