Flooding (Norfolk County Council Liberal Democrats)

Norfolk County Council Liberal Democrats <info@norfolkcclibdems.org.uk>

Flooding

Cllr Paul Morse, Leader of the Norfolk County Council Liberal Democrats, working with flood wardens in Walcott

The issue

Many parts of the county suffer repeat damage from flooding. Surface water flooding, which occurs when the ground, rivers and drains cannot absorb heavy rainfall, has caused particular problems for local residents and that the effects of climate change are likely to exacerbate the problem.

Surface water flooding issues are particularly hard to resolve - partly because several different organisations are responsible for different aspects of the problem including water companies, the Environment Agency, district and county councils, private land owners and the Highways Agency. Liberal Democrat councillors in Norfolk have had many first hand experiences of the difficulties in satisfactorily resolving persistent flooding problems reported by local residents.

Our view

We believe that if Local Authorities can take the lead on managing surface water flooding this will benefit local residents not only by increasing the safety of those living in flood-prone areas but also by reducing the costs of dealing with the flooding. National evidence indicates that flooding in towns and cities from surface water currently costs the national economy £270m each year.

A recent review of the catastrophic 2007 national flooding by Sir Michael Pitt highlighted the increasing risk of localised flooding unless urgent action is taken. Sir Michael put forward a number of recommendations at the national level to improve flood resilience. We believe that these recommendations are realistic and implementation should be made a priority in Norfolk.

We think it is particularly important that the different organisations involved in the response to surface water flooding improve how they work together. Currently it is a total nightmare trying to get any progress in resolving issues because of the continual buck-passing between organisations. The County Council needs to take urgent action to ensure individuals' property is protected.

What we are doing about it

Once again it was the Liberal Democrats who first put this issue on the Council's debating agenda in July last year when we submitted a formal motion to the Council to try and get early action taken to help local residents sufferin from flooding damage.

Read the motion that we submitted.

The Council agreed to support us in lobbying for change but is still deciding how best to take forward the Government's recommendations in this field and will bring forward some ideas in the next month. We will be scrutinising their proposals to make sure that they are really going to make a difference to Norfolk residents. We are keen that the Council should take a lead for Norfolk in pulling all of the different agencies together to fix flooding problems once and for all.