Winter Flooding (Preparation)

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to have you presiding over us, Mr Bone.

Last winter was nothing short of a nightmare for many people in our country, including in my constituency, who faced some of the worst flooding in living memory. The heaviest and most persistent rainfall in years created transport chaos, destroyed livelihoods and literally put people out of their homes. Even the most conservative estimates made the 2013-14 winter the wettest on record. More than 5,000 homes and businesses were flooded and many rivers in southern England reached their highest ever recorded levels.

I want to make it clear from the outset that although many of my constituents experienced huge inconvenience and some flooding as a result of last winter’s weather, we are not in the same ballpark as many areas of the country, nor do we pretend to be. Indeed, part of the reason why I secured this debate is to tell a good news story of how we learned the lessons of the past in Winchester and prevented flooding from taking place, and how I think that can serve us in the winter to come.

However, my main purpose today is to try to explain the wider socio-economic impact that flooding can have in a constituency such as mine and how some parts of our country can all too easily fall off the map when it comes to flood resilience works. In doing that, I intend to break Winchester’s story down into two parts: the historic city of Winchester and everywhere else. It will become clear why as I develop my argument.

Back in the year 2000, Winchester flooded—not just some of the villages that make up my constituency, but Winchester itself, as the River Itchen burst its banks. Locals remember ducks and swans happily swimming around the ancient city streets within sight of the famous statue of King Alfred, who keeps watch over the city from the Broadway. Many of my constituents use the year 2000 as their marker when judging floods thereafter.

This year, I am happy to say, Alfred kept his feet dry, and it was generally positive action from Hampshire county council, Winchester city council and the Environment Agency that ensured that he did. The River Itchen flows into my constituency through Alresford, into the Itchen valley and down into Winchester itself, passing along the appropriately named Water lane in an area known historically, although not so much these days, as “the Soak”. At its height, such was the volume of water flowing through Winchester that there was a real risk that dozens of homes and businesses in the lower part of the town would flood.

To put a figure on what I mean by volume, I should say that at one point, some 12,000 litres per second were flowing towards the city mill and, as it turned out, the incredibly sturdy and resilient Roman bridge that goes past the city mill. With the help of the Isle of Wight fire brigade, to whom we are incredibly grateful, people tried to bypass the mill to relieve some of the pressure on homes upstream, but even the heaviest pumping equipment known in the county and elsewhere, I am sure, was never going to be enough. That is where the lessons learned from the events of 2000 came into play: we tried something that other Members may be interested in copying in their areas.

Fourteen years ago, the sluices that control and protect Winchester and control the flow of the River Itchen through the city were not intelligently managed. Several downstream at William of Wykeham’s famous Winchester college, designed to let water out on to the ancient water meadows, were not fully open. The inevitable backing-up that occurred was sooner or later going to cause the Itchen to burst its banks. That was what flooded many homes and schools in that part of town.

In 2014, the lessons had been learned and the Environment Agency was fully in control of all the sluices in the city. It was a delicate balancing act. I went out with people from the Environment Agency many times and watched them work. The impact was obvious to those living alongside the Itchen and will serve as a reassuring factor as we approach the winter of 2014-15.

Further to that, there is an idea that I aired in the House back in February; I know the Minister is aware of it and I believe it could be useful to other parts of the country this year. We borrowed a bit of genius from Pakistan that really did save Winchester this year. The gentleman in question was a former army major in the Pakistani army. He settled in the UK, where he became part of the Environment Agency team in the south-east. He was aware that the sluice control in the centre of the city could only ever do so much, and, with water levels continuing to rise as the rain continued to fall, he imposed what we call a restriction many miles upstream, which deliberately flooded some farmland in the Itchen valley. That restriction literally drew heat out of the river. The Environment Agency lowered dozens of giant bags of granite and gravel into a river from a bridge on the busy A34 and M3 motorway; it was quite a sight.

As a result, River Itchen flows at the village of Easton reduced from a peak of 15 tonnes per second to about 13 tonnes per second. That might not sound like a lot, but I can assure you that it had an impact, Mr Bone. Estimates at the time reckoned that the action, together with all the other multi-agency work that went on, saved around 100 homes from certain flooding several miles downstream in the centre of Winchester. It was a first for our country, but it clearly worked. There was significant media interest at the time, and has been since, in the man and the method that saved Winchester. The gravel was even emptied out into the river when its job was done to help the fish spawn, so it was a true environmental success story.

I turn to the future. The Environment Agency is working in what it calls a partnership team—a wonderful term—with Winchester city council and Hampshire county council to implement contingency measures taken in last winter’s flood as permanent defences in the most strategic locations in the city. The areas identified include Water lane, where we are looking into the feasibility of a flood wall along the length of that road that will serve to protect the road and those properties from flooding in future, and north of Park avenue.

The Park avenue works will manage the flood flows from entering the city and give direct benefits to properties in Park avenue, to the Winchester school of art, run by the university of Southampton, and to St Bede’s primary school, by protecting flood walls. The partnership is aiming to deliver those improvements this financial year, which will be welcome news, especially for St Bede’s school. It had to be rebuilt and raised off the ground further after the floods of 2000. The team there, not to mention the parent body, which both coped brilliantly in extreme circumstances, were dismayed to find that the school was partially closed again this year, even after those works, as unprecedented water levels rendered the toilets in the school and parts of the building unusable.

Furthermore, the Environment Agency in our part of the world now stocks a flood barrier and has access to more nationally, if needed, that can be used to direct water away from high-risk areas, reducing the impact on property in my constituency. Those can be deployed quickly and the south-east team regularly train with the equipment to ensure that they are ready to respond at a moment’s notice. I have seen the training sessions in practice and the equipment really does the business.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and I am following his speech with great interest. Would he acknowledge the contribution of the fire and rescue brigades? Perhaps he will come to that issue later in his speech. Certainly, a number of brigades from my region were in the south-east. Does he further recognise the value of having a statutory duty placed on fire and rescue authorities to prepare for flooding in such contingencies?

[Steve Brine]

I have already mentioned the Isle of Wight fire brigade, and generally speaking, the Hampshire fire and rescue service were incredible. I have heard from many colleagues around the country about the work they did. I had the mobile number of the chief fire officer and I was constantly talking to him. At one point, I remember being out in the village of Littleton in my constituency; I called them and within two hours, they came out and helped pump out some people who were in real trouble. So yes, they were incredible.

On the statutory duty, my honest answer is that I am not sure, but I am well aware of the debate. I am more than open to it, and fire officers have talked to me about the issue in my part of the world. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution.

The tale of central Winchester last winter is a winter’s tale with a happy ending. That was in no small part down to the effectiveness of Gold control, which is based in Netley in southern Hampshire, backed up by Silver control in Winchester at the Guildhall, under the leadership of Simon Eden, the chief executive, and Rob Humby, the leader of the city council. That is the sort of command and control system that I am sure Members will recognise from their areas, designed to co-ordinate cross-agency working. It was a recommendation of the Pitt review following the floods of 2007 and it is key now to our planning for next winter if needed. It worked, and to visit it, as I did on a number of occasions back in February, and see city officers working alongside the Army, county colleagues and fire and rescue colleagues was very reassuring indeed.

The most visible example of that was one very bleak afternoon in February in Winchester, when those of us who had been heaving sandbags for longer than we would care to remember were more than a little relieved when Silver control sent some incredible guys and girls from HMS Collingwood to help us. Something tells me that they had the shoulders for it more than I do, and they were very welcome.

I said at the outset that I wanted to explain the wider socio-economic impact that flooding can have in a constituency such as mine. That is why I shall focus on what happened in a number of the villages that I represent. In places such as Kings Worthy, Headbourne Worthy, Littleton, Hursley and Sutton Scotney, flooding from groundwater, not the river, is the main flood risk management issue. The impact of groundwater flooding on individual communities such as those is severe and long-lasting in terms of the duration of flooding and recovery. My constituents living in Lovedon lane and Springvale road in Kings Worthy, as well as Chris and Sharron Bruty, who, with Ross Brimfield, run the King Charles pub—they were incredibly helpful to me and many other residents—would recognise that problem, as it was in their lives, and almost in their pub, for a month or more.

Residents just up the road in Headbourne Worthy, whose parish council chairman in a meeting with me just last week described his village as the “plughole for the valley”—he meant it in the nicest possible way—had weeks of deep water creeping closer to their homes and the ancient St Swithun’s church. The road through the village was closed, at their request, because of the bow waves—that became a hashtag last winter—caused by inconsiderate drivers flying through the floodwaters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Lavery]

That is essential. Whether people are climate change sceptics or not, there is a general belief and understanding that we are getting more rain that we have ever had before. It is essential that we have a strategic plan not just for next year or the next five years, but for 10, 20 or 30 years into the future. We need joined-together thinking with all the services that will be required to ensure that we address the problem adequately.

One major issue is the role of fire and rescue services. In my community, I witnessed horrific levels of flooding that posed a danger to life, particularly to an elderly community that was stranded because of the floods and the water levels, and the fire and rescue service did a fantastic job on that occasion. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) mentioned the work of fire and rescue services. Is it not strange that despite the fact that they get called out to such areas and face danger when they try to rescue people—such as the elderly people I have just mentioned—they have no statutory obligation to respond to flooding in England and Wales? Is it not even stranger that there is such a statutory obligation on fire and rescue services in Scotland and Northern Ireland? Is it not about time that that was the case in England and Wales? I cannot see why anyone would disagree with that. Fire and rescue services, carrying out the fantastic service that they do, should be under a statutory duty to respond to flooding.

As the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) has just said, we must look back to see what happened not only in 2013-14, but 10 or 15 years ago, and learn lessons from it. The winter of 2013-14 was the wettest on record. The fire and rescue services have said that 7,800 homes and nearly 3,000 commercial properties were flooded, and 28 fire and rescue services supplied crews, high-volume pumps, flood rescue tactical advisers and pumping appliances. A large number of incidents were attended by the fire and rescue service, and across the UK over the entire three months nearly 7,000 incidents were recorded. The vast majority of those were in England, with more than a third in London, Surrey and Kent. Firefighters in Wales dealt with 457 incidents during the three months, the Scottish fire and rescue service dealt with 356 incidents and there were 27 incidents in Northern Ireland.

[Grahame M. Morris]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. He has mentioned an important aspect of our preparedness and the lessons we should learn from the flooding to help us create more resilient plans. Does he agree that the Minister should have discussions with colleagues from other Departments, such as the Department for Communities and Local Government, about putting in place plans on a regional or area-by-area basis to facilitate such an intervention, where firefighters have been involved not just in rescues but in safeguarding critical infrastructure, leafleting, issuing warnings and so on?

[Ian Lavery]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I will ask that question when I wind up my short contribution.

In 2013-14 most fire and rescue services recorded a large number of rescues—there were almost 2,000 rescues across the UK during those three months. Most of the rescues were in Surrey, Kent, Devon and Somerset, with Surrey alone recording more than 1,000 rescues during the three months. The figure is generally believed to be an underestimate. We must learn lessons from 2014 and beyond. It is time to acknowledge the main recommendations of the 2007 Pitt review, which the hon. Member for Winchester mentioned. The review, which was commissioned by the Labour party, had six key components: knowing where and when flooding will occur; reducing the risk of flooding and its impact; rescues; maintaining power and water supplies during an emergency; better advice and help to protect families and homes; and recovery. I do not understand—I hope the Minister will explain—why there should be a statutory duty in Northern Ireland and Scotland but not in Wales and England. Hopefully we can put that right.

The fire and rescue services have done a tremendous job, and they have been there when others are running away. I am talking about not only fires but flooding—I have seen that with my own eyes. As MPs, I am sure we all have experience of flooding monitors, who are unpaid volunteers from local communities who do their best. They check the flooding and alert other people. Those unpaid volunteers do a fantastic job. The Morpeth flood action group in my constituency does a great job, and not only in that type of work. It brought the funding and the partners together, and consequently we have what I would class as a success story.

The fire and rescue services do not just turn up and pump water; they rescue people and save lives, too. They were there in boats and other appliances to clear furniture and carry people on their shoulders. They did everything. They did a fantastic job. They also monitored for carbon monoxide and other gases once the water started to subside. I have emphasised the need for the Government to acknowledge that we must act now to ensure that the fire and rescue services have a statutory duty and the correct funding for flood training. They need the right appliances and funding for everything else that comes with a statutory duty. It is essential that those services are funded because, frankly, there has been a huge slash-and-burn exercise within local government that has had a huge impact on the fire and rescue services. Responding to flooding, which is an additional responsibility, is unfunded.

This debate is due, as we need to discuss how we can ensure that we do the best for the communities that we represent through flood defence schemes and ensuring that finances are available. We must also ensure that, when floods unfortunately occur, the fire and rescue services have a statutory duty and are in place to carry out the fantastic job they do anyway.