Flooding (Steart)

Debate between Ian Liddell-Grainger and Anne Marie Morris

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

That is the most weaselly thing I have ever heard from a port company—not from my hon. Friend who speaks with the best direction from her constituents. Fine. I am speaking for mine. Why do I care if a company claims a benefit for Bristol? What difference does that make to me? Some weaselly woman turned up to tell me what is happening, saying, “Don’t worry. Your little people will be okay. We are going to flood your area. We won’t give you anything for it, but it will be good, although we won’t allow visitors.” Come on. Bristol Port Company is dodgy. It is much better at complaining about pylons in front of the chief executive’s house than about container ports. I do not need a lecture.

We all thought that we had got rid of it, but next week it will be back in earnest. The Bristol Port Company will roll into the village of Otterhampton a week today with the first of a series of public meetings to tell the locals about its exciting plans or—dare I say it?—push them to accept its exciting plans, whatever form they may take. It is in league with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and, guess what, another totally useless quango, Natural England, our friends. I am delighted to say—I thank the Minister for this—that the Government will clip its ridiculous wings as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, wing clipping may be too late for Steart. The Environment Agency has submitted its planning application for that huge tidal flood bank. The Bristol Port Company intends to apply for planning permission to flood an enormous chunk of land on the other side of the road near Steart later this year. All that Steart will get out of that is a pile of bird droppings and an invasion of twitchers.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

I am listening to my hon. Friend with interest. Across the south-west we have huge problems. I have a similar issue with coastal erosion in Dawlish, and I share my hon. Friend’s concern that we need some conclusion on what is right and what is not. I agree that people are certainly more important than birds. Above all, we need some certainty, and I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that we need the Minister to agree what plans will be approved and what will not, particularly in Teignmouth where we want a flood defence scheme, which we really need, as opposed to the scheme in my hon. Friend’s constituency which sounds as though it is not needed.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend has encompassed the problem in a nutshell. The organisation is out of control, and does not care about people or anything, except its little friends who live in Essex and who will do whatever they want to do. It is up to people like us to stop that, and to make companies such as the Bristol Port Company realise that we are not a load of hicks who live in the country. I totally agree with my hon. Friend, who does her constituents a great service in bringing the matter to the attention of the House.

It is about time the Minister and Bristol Port Company considered compensation. A big infrastructure plan such as this requires a generous kick-back for those on the ground. How about some planning gain? Even Bristol Port Company is not talking about that. Unfortunately there are not enough people on the Steart peninsula to kick up sufficient fuss, but a fuss really needs to be made, and I am sorry to say to the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) that I am going to put my boots on and start kicking.

The Environment Agency's latest consultation exercise has burned about £60,000 of public money. The Minister may be about to tell us how popular the scheme is, but I warn him to consider his words carefully—I know that they have been drafted for him. Bodies such as the Environment Agency are, of course, obliged by law to consult, and rightly so, but the fact that few people respond to a consultation does not mean that the plans are popular. We all know how that has been got round in the past. Perhaps the Minister would like to know how many people answered the Environment Agency’s consultation questionnaire. This is important stuff, even for Bristol Port Company. Five thousand consultees would have cost a tenner a head. A bargain. But if there were only 500 responses, the cost would have been about £150. But there were not 500, 50 or even five replies. The Environment Agency had replies from—wait for it—three people. Why? People do not trust the Environment Agency and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) said, they do not think it worth the effort to reply as the proposal will be steamrollered through by Europe.

The cost works out at £20,000 per respondent—£20,000. It is cheaper having the Bristol ports up the road. Why do people not bother to participate? I have an idea—they do not trust those involved. They see an overgrown jungle of interfering regulators who have been trying to do this for 10 years, who squander their money, and who do not listen. Everyone knows—this is not rocket science—that these are hard times for Great Britain plc. Around the country, we are bracing ourselves for cutbacks, job losses and austerity. They have started. We are supposed to be in this together, not individually, but the Environment Agency seems to assume that it has some special exemption. It has come to believe in fairy gold. The estimated cost of its plan to flood a corner of my constituency is £28 million of our money, and that is a disgrace, never mind what Bristol Port Company will spend. Our nation cannot afford that. There are more important priorities, and the Minister—he really needs to listen—should stop the project dead in its tracks before we have a real disaster.