Flood Defence Projects: South-west

Debate between Ian Liddell-Grainger and John McNally

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered management of flood defence projects in the South West.

I am delighted to be working under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank the Minister for responding to two debates in a row—seagulls and flooding. There is a sort of synonymy to that. I am grateful for this debate. It is a short one, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) wishes to contribute.

Three years ago, almost to the day, I stood in the Somerset levels in waders, in floodwater, fighting for Government action. We witnessed the most appalling and predictable natural calamity when rain began to fall. It was a relentless season of downpours, and many of my constituents were stranded and made homeless as the riverbanks burst.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces is present, and I would like to let the Chamber know that at this precise moment there are three battalions in England, one in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland on stand-by for flooding. This is a critical time to have those people, and I am thankful for the work they did last weekend. The work they did in my patch was absolutely phenomenal. I know that they are ready to go.

Returning to what happened in my constituency, some of the sewers gave way and the landscape began to vanish under a feisty, filthy water. At the time, I was very critical of the Environment Agency and its then chairman, Lord Smith. I described him in a couple of TV interviews as a coward for failing to visit the stricken area. When asked what I would do if he turned up, I replied that I was tempted—and I was—to flush his head down the nearest water closet. Forgive my straightforward turn of phrase; they were tense and difficult times as 17 miles of my constituency had become an inland lake. Lives had been ruined. Tempers were at breaking point.

All that is happily behind us, but there is a saying about things destined for the water closet: Lord Smith may have been flushed out of the Environment Agency, but he remains afloat as provost of a Cambridge college and chairman of the Task Force on Shale Gas. How apt and rather sardonic. The good news is that the Environment Agency is in much safer hands these days and plays a far more proactive and constructive role in protecting us from the ravages of flooding. For that, the Government deserve a great deal of credit, and I thank them.

The Minister represents a constituency with flooding challenges of its own, so she fully understands the subject from personal experience. Because of her hard work and the efforts of her predecessors, Bridgwater and West Somerset can now breathe much more easily whenever we hear raindrops.

After the crisis of 2013-14, a new era of flood defence was born, with the creation of the Somerset Rivers Authority. The idea was simple and sensible: take back control of flood defences from the centralised Environment Agency and base it locally with people who live and work in the area. The agency would use its technical skills to get the job done and the authority would set out the important tasks to be tackled. There were big battles to be fought, of course. There had to be muscle to ensure that the then Prime Minister came up with enough money to pay the large sum we wanted for the initial remedial work, but, with determined arm-twisting, David Cameron delivered. At this point, I must pay tribute to the Minister for her efforts in pushing forward the legislation to secure the SRA future funding. We are all very grateful.

Now I would like to reveal one or two skeletons, unfortunately. It has not been easy getting the SRA set up and running. The authority was designed to bring together all the experts from the old river drainage boards and Somerset’s local authorities. The Government provided starter money, but the deal demanded local authority contributions too, some of which were easier to obtain than others. Without doubt, the worst offender was Taunton Deane Borough Council—my neighbour.

When it comes to alleviating flooding, Taunton Deane could not be called a big spender. The local authority has failed to deal properly with flood risks in Taunton over many years. It skimps. It calls for consultants’ reports. It sits on the results. But when the waters rise in Taunton the rivers burst in my constituency, not in that of Taunton Deane. The River Tone snakes its way right past the centre of Taunton and ends up joining the overworked River Parrett down in the middle of the Somerset levels, as the Minister is aware. That is where the worst flooding happened three years ago. Since then, the neighbouring Sedgemoor District Council has worked tirelessly, along with the Government, to get the important parts of the River Parrett properly dredged—grateful thanks again. Much of that great and important job has been done, but it is absolutely pointless if your next-door neighbour leans on his shovel and does next to nothing. I am sorry to report that that is precisely what has been happening in Taunton for almost 60 years—it ain’t new.

I hope that the House will forgive me for offering some of the background to this sad state of affairs. Records of flooding in Taunton go back to the late 19th century. Since then, we have been seriously flooded in 1929, 1960, 1968 and 2000, and, of course, more recently. Without a shadow of a doubt, the worst incident was in 1960 when, as the river overflowed, 500 properties in the town were washed out. Some parts of the town were 3 feet underwater. It was a soggy mess. Plans for a relief channel were suggested after that. The old Bridgwater to Taunton canal could have been used, which, in engineering terms, made perfect sense, but the estimated £1.7 million cost was considered prohibitive. So the cheap option was chosen, and the riverbanks were upgraded just a bit, but by the early 1990s it was obvious that more needed doing. The banks had to be built up again, and this time a guarantee was given to safeguard everyone for 200 years.

Rule one: never take a guarantee at face value. Barely a decade later, the River Tone flooded the town, and there have been more recent floods in 2004, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013. That gives Members the general idea: too little, too late, too cheap. It is the same old Taunton story repeated time after time.

Today, just as for the past eight years, Taunton Deane is led by Councillor John Williams, a builder with an extravagant plan for the future. By now, I think he probably believes he can walk on water and, if he is not too careful, pretty soon he will have to do just that. Mr Williams wants to grow Taunton by building. His dream is to put up 17,000 new houses by 2028. That is unbelievable growth, higher by a margin of 70% than the average Government prediction for new houses anywhere. It is absolutely impossible. Last year, with the help of Mr Williams’s mates in the local building trade—firms such as Summerfield, which seems to own an awful lot of land around there—Taunton Deane Borough Council presided over the construction of just 883 new houses, and that was a record then. If the council carries on at that rate, by the end of 2028 it will be way short of the insane target of 17,000 houses.

But, say what you like about Councillor Williams—a lot of people do—he is nothing if not determined. His absurd new building target was set in 2010 and he is sticking to it. There is a faint chance, and I sincerely hope it is a faint chance, that he might even get the Government to put in money to help him on his way. Mr Williams has tarted up his plans and submitted a bid for Taunton to build a new garden town. What his glossy documentation fails to point out, however, is that all this manic building will take place on some of the wettest and flood-prone land in the United Kingdom. The much-trumpeted Taunton garden town could well turn out to be tomorrow’s Atlantis. The builders might need aqua-lungs and flippers. Does Summerfield employ frogmen? Perhaps Wrencon—Councillor Williams’s personal building firm—does.

Those who follow parliamentary affairs will know that I take a dim view of some of Mr Williams’s activities. It is wrong for any elected councillor to accept a private building contract on his own patch without declaring it, but Taunton Deane has no rules about that. Even the council leader is immune. That is not just strange; it is downright wrong. It undermines the confidence we deserve to have in local government leaders at any level. No wonder people in Taunton have become highly suspicious of this leader and his empire-building plans.

Before I came to Westminster Hall this afternoon, I took a hard look at the Environment Agency’s flood maps for the Taunton area, and I ask the Minister to do the same. The blue bits represent risk, and the blue bits are almost everywhere. I have also read detailed reports compiled by flood experts on behalf of Taunton Deane. They do not go as far as to say, “Stop before it’s too late,” but they never minimise the threat and they urge absolute caution unless flood defences are radically improved. Let me quote from one of the latest reports, completed in 2014:

“The town centre and many existing properties rely heavily on the degree of protection resulting from the existing flood defence embankments and structures. The condition of these… is very variable, many will need to be replaced… None of the defences will provide an appropriate standard of protection… and they do not include a ‘safety margin’… which is essential… where so much property and business could be affected by small changes in the predicted flood water levels.”

[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

As chair of the all-party group on flood prevention, I am undertaking a routine check on all areas throughout the United Kingdom. I started in Tadcaster last week, and I hope to complete some areas over the next five or six weeks. Is the hon. Gentleman minded to allow me to visit his area to gather some information?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I would welcome the hon. Gentleman. The Minister has been down to look not just at the flooding, but at Hinkley Point nuclear power station—she has Sizewell. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon is one of my near neighbours and we welcome anyone coming to look at the flooding. It was a disaster for us all. The Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), is a Cornish MP and therefore knows how much flooding affects our area. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman and personally host him.

I will continue as I have a little bit to go and I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon wishes to have his say. This is what the flood experts had to say on Councillor Williams’ building bonanza:

“The proposed new development in the town centre and other sites will increase the volume of water discharging to the Levels and Moors”.

That was the clearest warning that Taunton’s building bonanza could spark floods next door. The report said that

“doing nothing is no answer”.

The only way to tackle the issue is with a new water storage facility costing around £15 million, but will it ever happen? I checked the National Rivers Authority programme for the coming year and there was no mention of it. Apart from some maintenance on French weir in the centre of town, Taunton is not scheduled to do any serious flood defence work in the foreseeable future, yet the council leader is boasting that he has the money in next year’s budget to deal with floods. How much? Slightly less than £2 million. That does not make sense. It is not enough.

Once again, Taunton is cutting corners, and it is not using its own cash either. Councillor Williams intends to spend the new homes bonus, which is a grant he gets from central Government, as the Minister is well aware. It is sleight of hand—trickery—and it is cheating the public. Everyone knows that flood prevention costs serious money. We know that. Everyone knows that budgets are tight. That is agreed. Everyone would understand if Taunton simply could not pay, but the council is prepared to spend money like water on totally pointless things.

Last night, the council voted to borrow millions of pounds—you are not going to believe this, Mr Pritchard—to refurbish its office. The Deane House is the council’s headquarters and it is 30 years old. The council would get about £2.5 million if it sold the place. Its advisers said it was not worth a penny, but Councillor Williams, the jobbing builder, intends to fork out £11 million to do it up. For that kind of cash, looking across the Atlantic, he could install gold lifts, marble walls and champagne fountains. Eat your heart out, President Trump; look what President Williams has got! A short step down the street is Somerset County Council’s headquarters, which the Minister knows. Taunton could have moved there to a brand new office for a fraction of the cost. It was offered a building. Does that sound like a good idea? I know a man who thinks so:

“If Taunton Deane moves to County Hall the Council will form part of a gathering of other public sector services, to create a one-stop shop for our community.”

The writer is none other than the leader of the council: John Raymond Williams, to use his full name. The words are on Taunton Deane Borough Council’s own website, but like the author, they are slightly out of date.

The reputation of any council depends on leadership and management. I do not have to tell anyone here that. Taunton Deane has a leader with bizarre territorial ambitions. He is trying to swallow up West Somerset Council, in my patch. He has an absentee chief executive with the worst sickness record of any local government officer in the whole of England. I am sorry to say that I would not trust either of them to run anything. Least of all, I cannot and will not trust them to look after the flood prevention measures that affect my constituency so badly.