Norfolk County Council to lobby for better flood resilience in Norfolk

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 29th Jul 2008

Lib Dems are fighting for more to be done to prevent flooding in Norfolk

Progress has been made in the fight to protect homes across Norfolk that are at risk from flooding after Norfolk County Council agreed yesterday to lobby the Government and local MPs for improvements to the management of flooding issues.

The agreement comes after Paul Morse, who is Liberal Democrat councillor for North Walsham East, an area which has suffered from localised flooding in recent times, submitted a motion calling for the full Council to demand urgent and fundamental improvements to be made to flood resilience across the country, including giving councils a new responsibility for leading on resolving local flooding issues.

Mr Morse's call for action focused on the problem of surface water flooding, which occurs when the ground, rivers and drains cannot absorb heavy rainfall. 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 .

Commenting on the successful motion, which was agreed with some amendments tabled at the meeting, Cllr Morse said:

"Localised surface water flooding is a recurring local issue in my electoral division so I am satisfied with the outcome of the debate and the agreement of the County Council to support me in lobbying for change.

"When I began to investigate the causes and solutions to the problem of surface water flooding I was met with a bewildering labyrinth of bodies responsible for different parts of the system: the County Council, Anglian Water, district councils, individual landowners and the Environment Agency to name the main ones. Nobody had an overview, nobody was making the different parts of the maze talk to each other, nobody knew how it all worked and whilst everyone argues about who should do what, properties get flooded.

"My motion was about trying to solve an on-going problem that has a real impact on people's lives. I'm pleased that the Council has offered its backing today but I find myself asking, if the Liberal Democrats hadn't raised this issue would anyone else at the Council have taken the initiative at the political level to tackle this significant problem?"