Flooding: Staffordshire

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered flooding in Staffordshire.

Storm Alex this weekend has been an all too timely reminder of the havoc that flooding can wreak. In January 2020, we saw some of the very worst flooding in Staffordshire for a century. The River Sow in Stafford burst its banks. Throughout my constituency, from Bishop’s Wood to Ranton, from Lapley to Hopton, my constituents have yet again suffered from flooding.

I am grateful to a number of Staffordshire colleagues for coming today to provide support on this important topic. I am sure they will provide numerous illustrations of how their constituents have also been impacted by flooding in Staffordshire.

Staffordshire has done more than its fair share of house building over the last few years. Increased development in Stafford is important, given its strategic location in the UK, but with that come consequences for residents. It is vital that our local infrastructure is able to cope. Increased surface run-off means that, over the last 20 years, homes that were never affected before have suffered from flooding, once-dry sports grounds are now regularly unusable due to being waterlogged, and local businesses are often left counting the cost due to floodwaters preventing them from opening, or destroying their goods. Something needs to be done to tackle these issues. I fear that if we do not act now, the situation regarding flooding in Staffordshire will only get worse.

The major problem in Staffordshire is who to call when your house starts to flood. We all know who to call when a crime is being committed, when someone falls ill or if there is a fire, but there appears to be no answer for flooding. There is literally no one available to answer that call. I have repeatedly had constituents calling me and my constituency office, often at midnight, as water has been pouring into their homes and there is no one to help. It is simply not good enough. I am urging the Government today to create an emergency three-digit flood phone number—for example, 555— that everyone in our country knows to call if they are experiencing a flood emergency.

We already have the technology available. It could work like the 101 number that puts people through to their local police force. In this instance, it would put my constituents in touch with someone in Staffordshire who is able to help them with their flooding situation. The emergency flood phone number should run 24/7, because flooding is an emergency. When water is pouring through your letterbox in the middle of the night, the place where you live, your livelihood and even your life could be risk.

That brings me to another question that, frankly, the Government need to answer. It appears to be a very simple question: who is the lead authority responsible for flooding? Many agencies are involved with handling flooding, but when I speak to them, none seems keen to take overall responsibility. That is not good enough for residents.

Let me give an example from my constituency. Tixall Road was flooded for nearly a month and no agency sorted it out. The main roads from Great Haywood and Little Haywood were blocked due to floodwater; residents told me they had to go on a detour of many miles and it cost local businesses, such as the Canalside Farm shop whose customers come from far and wide, a huge amount of money.

What was I told when I tried to find help for my constituents? The agency responsible for the road said it could not deal with it because it “wasn’t their water,” as the water had come from a field. That is just one of numerous examples of the complete lack of joined-up thinking in relation to flooding, and I am sure the House will hear more examples from my colleagues in their speeches this afternoon.

Of course, I called all the different agencies that are meant to help with flooding but no one was willing to move the water on Tixall Road, and all gave me a different reason why it was not their problem. But it was a problem; the weeks went on and the villagers still could not get on with their lives. They were still cut off by floodwater, farmers’ crops were being destroyed in the fields and local businesses were suffering. The only official response was that the police came along and closed the road. I agree that that was necessary in the short term, but shutting the road did not solve the fundamental problem that it was still flooded and no one could use it. In the end, the residents had to remove the water at their own expense. In my view, that should not have happened and they have been badly let down.

In order to try and find a solution to such problems, I held a flooding roundtable this summer with all the key stakeholders in Staffordshire. They all told me how seriously they take flooding, but not one of them was prepared to say that it was the lead flooding agency or to take responsibility for the specific examples that I gave. It was almost farcical. Let me make this clear: the situation regarding flooding in Staffordshire is not a joke, and this bureaucratic runaround is the same problem that my constituents face every day.

I said earlier that there was a need for a telephone line for constituents to call if they were experiencing flooding, but in tandem with that I am calling for a flood control centre, which is something that I have raised repeatedly, and which has significant local support in Staffordshire. We need a flood control centre with a real person at the end of that telephone number, in Stafford, who is able to do something to help my constituents. It is frankly not good enough for my constituents to have water pouring through their front door, and to call number after number and be sent from pillar to post, when all the while the water is rising and their home and possessions are being destroyed.

Even worse, I have been told by constituents that, on the rare occasions that someone has agreed to help them with flooding, when the agency has arrived it has informed residents that it cannot do anything because, “It is the wrong type of water.” I repeat—“It is the wrong type of water,” and the agency says it is not responsible for it. Another constituent told me they were informed by an agency that, “The water was in the wrong place for them to deal with it.” My constituent was well aware that the water was in the wrong place—it was in her living room.

I am sorry, but this situation is unacceptable. I do not believe that it is my constituents’ job to figure out where water is coming from or the type of water it is. What they want is to have a lead authority for flooding, an authority with statutory responsibility for helping people suffering from this problem—no ifs, no buts, just a lead authority to help them.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Theo Clarke]

Mr Hosie, are we allowed to take interventions?

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

You are allowed to take interventions from people on the call list.

[Aaron Bell]

Thank you, Mr Hosie. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the system is too fragmented; to give an example from my constituency, parish councillor Mike Joynson in Halmer End reported exactly the same problem, but this time it was with developers—there was a dispute about whether it the utility company or the developers were involved. Again, if we had a single point of contact and people knew who was responsible, it would make it much better for people in both her constituency and mine.

[Theo Clarke]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The whole point of today’s debate is to say that creating an emergency three-digit telephone number would mean that all our constituents had a direct number to call in flooding emergencies, which would be linked to our Staffordshire flood control centre, and that having an agency with statutory responsibility for flooding would lessen the impact on our constituents.

We must also have a long-term plan to try to prevent people’s homes from being flooded in the first place. To give another example from my constituency, Sandon Road is flooded all too frequently. As rain begins to fall, it is always the Marston and Sandyford brooks that start to overflow and the water often floods into my constituents’ homes. I recently attended the Sandon Road residents’ meeting, where I was distressed to hear at first hand the impact that regular flooding is having on my constituents. I pay tribute to Councillor Jonathan Price for all his efforts to try to help the residents of Sandon Road.

I am very grateful for Government-supported schemes such as Flood Re, which provides insurance for constituents who would otherwise be unable to access it. It is a vital safety net and very helpful when the worst does happen. However, we should strive to do better. Insurance cannot prevent the fear of flooding that my constituents have every time it rains. Insurance cannot replace priceless items such as family photographs, and floods can often destroy and take away the lives of many of my constituents, with days, weeks or even—in many cases—months being blighted by the impact of their homes being flooded. I therefore believe we need to do more to stop water getting into people’s homes in the first place.

Councillor Price helpfully put out a letter to local residents in Stafford last week in which he said that he has arranged the delivery of sandbags in case of imminent danger of flooding. While that may slow down the water, I am afraid it will not stop it coming in eventually. That is the crux of the problem. While it is vital that we continue to provide short-term emergency support for residents affected by flooding, that will only be truly successful for the residents of Sandon Road and elsewhere in Stafford if it is accompanied by properly funded long-term measures.

I welcome the Conservative party manifesto commitment to £4 billion in new funding over the coming years for new developments as part of a £100 billion investment in infrastructure. I was also pleased to hear the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirm in March that the Government will honour that commitment and spend £4 billion on flood defences over the next five years. Agencies have told me repeatedly that they do not have the funding to maintain and improve the waterways in Staffordshire to combat flooding effectively, so I look forward to working with the Minister and the Department constructively to see how some of that funding can be used to tackle the significant problems in Staffordshire.

I believe that, having left the European Union, the Government have a great part to play in promoting the role of farmers and landowners in preventing residential flooding. We should encourage our farmers to protect land, improve access to the countryside and take measures to prevent residential flooding. Farmers in Stafford should be congratulated on the work they are already doing in this area. I recently visited farmland in my constituency that is very prone to flooding, which has been replanted with willow trees. The area has become a thriving sanctuary for wildlife. I urge the Minister to investigate making such schemes more attractive to farmers, to allow compensation for some of their land to be flooded and to ensure that we can encourage nature as well as protecting homes.

The impacts of climate change will mean that, unfortunately, there will be an increase in both the severity and frequency of flooding in Staffordshire in the future. It is therefore vital that we have robust plans in place to deal with flooding not only over the next year but for the next decade, and to look to the future.

I am afraid that, when we try to look up the true picture of what is going on with flooding in Staffordshire, it is very hard to find out. I have welcomed the Government’s reviews into flood risk management and flooding, but it has been difficult to find a clear picture of the impact of flooding today. The people of Staffordshire completely understand that the Government do not have the power to control mother nature and that they cannot expect the Government to stop the rain from falling or the rivers Penk and Sow from flooding. However, they are asking for our help. They want help to know who exactly to call when water is pouring through their front doors, help to encourage and properly compensate farmers whose land is being submerged by flood waters in order to protect their neighbours’ homes, and help to fund flood management schemes to ensure that no one in Staffordshire lives in fear that one bad spell of rain could leave their house or their family home destroyed.

I am not demanding the impossible from the Minister. I do not expect her and DEFRA to hold back the tide, but I am asking for the measures I have outlined to be implemented to help us to tackle flooding and level up the country so that whether someone lives in Westminster or Stafford, they will know that the Government are doing their best to protect them, their family and their home from the devastating effects of flooding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. It is also a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) who was with me at the opening ceremony for the Etruria valley link road the other day, which will increase the links between her constituency and mine to the mutual benefit of all our constituents.

I congratulate the other Members who spoke, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke), who secured this debate. She is a doughty champion for her constituents in Stafford. As she said, too often residents across Staffordshire are passed from pillar to post, frequently between the council and the water authority, and they are supposed to somehow referee between the authorities. It should not be for them to do that. It often falls to us to do it, and we are happy to. Our constituency staff teams do a great job, but it really should not be for them, either. There should be a solution put in place, and I know the Minister will respond to that.

Over recent months, I have been contacted by constituents whose properties have been flooded as a result of heavy rainfall, capacity issues in the sewers and blocked gullies. In most cases it appears to me that the main cause of blocked gullies is not debris, although that is sometimes the case, but tree roots. Sneyd Avenue in my constituency of Newcastle-under-Lyme is a clear example of that. Owing to a culmination of capacity issues and blocked gullies, residents of Sneyd Avenue have experienced serious flooding for several years. One constituent who has lived there since 1982 says that it is getting increasingly worse.

Following hydraulic modelling undertaken by Severn Trent Water, for which I thank it, it was identified that six properties are at risk of being flooded once every two years as a result of water capacity issues. Severn Trent had previously uncovered a taproot in the drainage system that required a precision cut to be removed. Tree root ingress is a main cause of blocked drains, pipes and sewerage systems in the UK. It is common for fine tree roots to gain access to the drainage system, and once inside they develop into taproots and root masses. That is what comes through to me in my constituents’ correspondence.

Staffordshire County Council is responsible for the highway drains. I know that it routinely cleans the gullies, based on the road classifications, but there is also a need for improved management and preventive measures with regard to the tree roots. For instance, CCTV drain inspections can identify drainpipes that are in close proximity to trees and hedges before a serious problem, such as root ingress, develops.

Flooding in Newcastle-under-Lyme appears to occur most frequently in the residential suburbs to the south of the town centre in areas such as Clayton, the Westlands, and Thistleberry. Many of the streets in those areas, such as Sneyd Avenue and Howard Place, are lined with trees, and therefore the tree roots are likely a contributing factor.

Earlier this year, on 12 August, communities across north Staffordshire experienced widespread flooding after scorching temperatures led to very heavy rain and thunderstorms. It led to some of the worst flooding that residents had seen. Together with the local borough and county councillor for Newcastle South, Mr Stephen Sweeney, I went to see residents of Lincoln Avenue in Clayton to see for myself the damage caused.

Lincoln Avenue rises gently uphill in both directions from the centre of the road, and the houses in the dip have long been plagued by flooding during heavy thunder- storms. Severn Trent addressed the issue approximately 15 years ago, but unfortunately the issue is now back and I can see for myself the damage caused. Again, it seems that tree roots are the issue. My constituents certainly believe that and have been advised of it by people who know about such things. I am pleased to report that Severn Trent has responded to me and undertaken to survey the local sewerage network.

I understand how disruptive floods are. I have heard about the awful cases in Burton and Stafford, although not so much in the Moorlands, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), who is no longer here. I entirely appreciate the frustrations of all the constituents whose properties have been flooded, especially when it has happened on multiple occasions. In one case in my constituency, an elderly constituent could not return to her home for several months, and still has concerns about it flooding once again.

As the winter months approach, it is vital that Severn Trent Water and Staffordshire County Council work together to alleviate the significant disruption caused by flooding. They should employ the appropriate technology, such as hydraulic monitoring and CCTV drain inspections. I look forward to working with all my colleagues, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford, who secured this debate, to find a solution to the problem.