Flood Protection (West Kent)

Debate between John Stanley and Tracey Crouch

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

As the Member for Tonbridge and Malling, I am fortunate to represent one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, constituencies within 30 miles of London. Environmentally, my constituency has one drawback, however, and that is its topography. It falls between the southern slopes of the north downs and goes on further south, going gradually downhill across the northern slope of the River Medway’s valley down to the River Medway. It therefore creates a natural flood risk area.

That has been known and has been a feature of the area over a long period. Indeed, I have seen many photographs in black and white, taken between the wars, of men suitably attired in bowler hats and cloth caps propelling themselves in rowing boats down Tonbridge High street when it was flooded. Since then, there have been significant improvements, the most significant of which took place shortly after I was elected in 1974, when the Southern Water Authority introduced the River Medway (Flood Relief) Act 1976. That created the Leigh flood storage barrier, upstream of Tonbridge. The barrier was created in association with an extensive flood storage area on which flood water was captured on agricultural land during periods of intense flooding and then, hopefully, held there and released in a controlled way down the River Medway.

Subsequently, under the previous Labour Government, there was significant expenditure on strengthening the Tonbridge flood defence wall. In addition, we had a new flood defence scheme to protect the village of East Peckham. Sadly, those measures did not prove enough to withstand the exceptional rainfall that occurred, at great intensity and over a short period, last Christmas. It had serious consequences in my constituency.

Individual constituents found themselves having to evacuate their homes and then return to clear up the awful mess that occurs when flood water penetrates. They have had to go through a long period of trying to dry out, repair and internally reconstruct their homes, replacing all the goods destroyed by the flood water. As if that were not enough, they have also had to face a double financial whammy: the terms of their flood insurance, if such insurance was still obtainable, were moved very severely against them and coupled with that was significant depreciation in the capital value of many properties.

The excellent leader of Tonbridge and Malling borough council, Councillor Nicolas Heslop, has just written to me with the latest position, which is that

“a total of 290 homes and 146 businesses were flooded in the Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council area alone over Christmas and the New Year. Even today, nearly 9 months after the flood event, 59 families in that area remain unable to return to their homes due to the huge scale of repair works.”

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate. May I place on record my tribute to Tonbridge and Malling borough council, which does great work in defending many of my constituents, many of whom were once his constituents before boundary changes were made? Does he agree that while we continue to see increased climate change, it is important that local government, national Government and regional government assess and reflect on the threat to people’s houses posed by rising flood waters?

[Sir John Stanley]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. One point that all those concerned with the climate change debates need to recognise, whether they are fully supportive or among the sceptics, is that one characteristic of climate change, which is happening now, is greater transition between one extreme and another. That has serious implications with respect to rainfall and she has rightly drawn attention to that.

May I make it clear to the Minister that the figures from the leader of Tonbridge and Malling borough council that I cited relate only to part of my constituency, because another part of it is covered by the Sevenoaks district council area?

Against that background, what should the Government be doing as regards west Kent—in particular, if I may say so, my area of west Kent? I want to put three representations to the Minister. First, the present situation in trying to find out who is responsible for maintenance and repair of a great number of surface water channels is totally inadequate and insufficient. In my constituency, and similarly, I suspect, in a great many others across England, the flooding was created not merely by the River Medway bursting its banks but by all the water sources that flow towards the Medway—other watercourses that are not main rivers, such as streams, culverts and irrigation ditches. In many cases, the clearance of those watercourses and the maintenance of their banks and beds has been seriously deficient and inadequate.

Another issue relates to sub-surface water problems adding to flooding when highway drainage is insufficient and water bubbles out from the drainage system on to the surface. Even more serious is the problem of the foul water drainage system—the sewerage system—not being adequately maintained or having adequate capacity. I am afraid that in some roads in Tonbridge human excrement was forced up on to the surface as a result of the inadequacy of the sewerage drainage system.

In some areas, the responsibility for maintenance is very clear. For what are described as main rivers—the Medway is a main river—the responsibility lies clearly with the Environment Agency. For highway drainage, it lies clearly with the highways authority. For sewerage drainage, it lies clearly with the water companies. Beyond that, however, there is a totally unsatisfactory impenetrability as to where ownership and, in particular, maintenance responsibilities lie. For many watercourses, they may fall between the Environment Agency, the water company, the internal drainage board, a public landowner and a private landowner. When we, as MPs, try to find out on behalf of our constituents who has the responsibility for clearance, maintenance and repair at a given spot, it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible.

My proposal for the Minister is radical, but my goodness it is needed. I accept that it would need to be implemented over a period, but it would be an immense step forward in terms of transparency and accountability. We need to create a surface water equivalent of the land register so that people in flood risk areas—property owners, whether domestic or business, their professional advisers, and, indeed, Members of Parliament—could see at a glance, easily and electronically, and possibly with access to large-scale downloadable maps, where the responsibility for maintenance and repair lies at a particular location. I put it to the Minister that that is a critical and urgent necessity for flood risk areas.

The second point I want to put to the Minister relates to flood insurance. I welcome the Government’s establishment of the Flood Re insurance scheme. It is a very good step forward for domestic householders in flood risk areas who find that their properties are non-insurable against flood risk. I put it to the Minister, however, that the scheme needs to be extended to premises that provide very important community facilities. Such premises may be in the ownership of charities, provident societies or clubs.

I shall give the Minister two illustrations from my constituency. The first is the Tonbridge indoor bowls club, whose membership runs into hundreds and which provides a very important focal point of enjoyment and social and community cohesion for a significant group of people. The other is the Tonbridge Juddians rugby football club, which is a very important facility for the people and area of Tonbridge.

Both premises were seriously flooded over Christmas and the new year, and the clubs have been put in a parlous position as a result of the insurance companies questioning whether they can continue to insure the premises. If the serious flooding that both clubs experienced is repeated, the repair of the buildings and the future of the clubs will undoubtedly be called into question, because the repairs may not be financeable from the clubs’ own resources. I therefore strongly urge the Government to consider this relatively limited extension of the Flood Re insurance scheme.

My third and most important representation to the Minister relates to the Leigh flood storage barrier and the related storage area. It has undoubtedly been a great help since it was brought into operation in the early 1980s, but as the events of last Christmas demonstrated, its capacity is clearly seriously insufficient. That was acknowledged by Environment Agency officials at our public meeting with them in Tonbridge in February when, in response to our questions as to why, notwithstanding the existence of the barrier, such serious flooding occurred in Tonbridge and further downstream, they recounted precisely what had happened over the 72 hours before Christmas day. They recounted how the intense rainfall led to the flood storage area filling up very rapidly and how the water rose higher and higher until it reached the legal maximum height allowed against the flood storage barrier.

In those circumstances, when the whole of the barrier’s structural integrity was threatened, which would have had catastrophic consequences, the Environment Agency had no alternative but to let a much greater volume of water out through the barrier than it wished. The consequences were very severe, with serious flooding all the way downstream from the barrier—at Hildenborough, Tonbridge, Hadlow, East Peckham, Wateringbury and Yalding, where there was a lot of national publicity about the scale of the flooding, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant).

Demonstrably, therefore, the capacity of the Leigh flood storage barrier is insufficient. The Environment Agency has costed increasing its capacity by a third at £11 million. The construction of the increased capacity is not a particularly sophisticated project, and the scheme only awaits Government approval. The former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), wrote to me in July to say that the Government would announce in the autumn statement the flood protection projects that will be implemented in the next six years, from 2015 to 2021. As we now know, the autumn statement will be made on 3 December. That date will be of very great importance to me and many of my constituents, as we wait to hear the Government’s decision.

As I hope the Minister will know, I wrote on 31 July to the present Secretary of State. I will conclude by reading what I said at the end of that letter:

“I am writing to urge you in the strongest terms to include the scheme to increase the capacity of the Leigh Flood Storage Area in the Government’s flood protection projects to be given the go-ahead at the time of the Autumn Statement.

I cannot state too strongly how important it is to a significant number of my constituents that the Government gives its approval to the Leigh Flood Storage Area increased capacity scheme this Autumn.”