Managing Flood Risk

Robert Walter Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con)]

Looking at the empty Opposition Benches, I wonder whether that UKIP councillor had a point—even if the point was wrong—about God moving in mysterious ways, and whether flooding does not affect Labour constituencies.

Like those of many hon. Friends, towns and villages in my constituency were flooded before Christmas and are still flooded. Just last Friday, I was in the village of Sixpenny Handley, high up on Cranborne Chase, where the flooding—a combination of record groundwater levels and excessive surface water—is just not going away. Residents are still pumping out their homes and the streets are awash with water that will not go away. There has been a very serious case of raw sewage overflowing from a local sewage plant, which was swamped by storm water that should have been kept separate.

That is just what has happened in Sixpenny Handley. I could tell the House stories about the market towns of Sturminster Newton and Blandford Forum; the Stour valley villages of Durweston, Stourpaine, Hamoon, Iwerne Minster, Fontmell Magna and Sturminster Marshall; and other places such as Winterborne Stickland, Milborne St Andrew, Tarrant Hinton and Tarrant Gunville, to list only the worst affected places in my constituency. I apologise to constituents who are listening to this debate or who read it in Hansard if I have missed them out.

On Christmas day, I had to make a 5-mile detour to get to lunch with friends in the hamlet of Hamoon, because the River Stour had broken its banks and there was a foot and a half of water over the bridge. Even then, I had to drive through a main street that was awash with deep water to get to lunch. Hamoon is still cut off from the east. Milborne St Andrew remains a village divided by water, and the village shop is surrounded by a lake that should be Milton road.

I pay tribute not in the first instance to the public authorities and the water companies, which have often been slow to respond, but to the hundreds of volunteers who have rallied around to help their neighbours, in particular the volunteer flood wardens, the parish councillors and all the ordinary people who have done more than just complain about the misery that they have suffered for more than two months.

The storm system that struck the Dorset coast just over a fortnight ago rightly hit the national news because of its sheer ferocity, the extreme rainfall and the damage that it caused. Dorset county council is still receiving in the region of 1,000 public inquiries a week about the flooding, and it has identified more than 7,000 road defects and hundreds of affected properties.

What has not been so visible or of such intense media interest is the suffering of rural residents, such as the many people in my North Dorset constituency who have experienced prolonged flooding not just this year, but every year for the past three or four years. It is that increasingly frustrated minority whom I would like to speak up for today, as we debate the future management of flood risk. They are a minority who, as a result of the focus on more densely populated areas downstream, will continue to lose out unless we rebalance our policy focus.

The third report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, “Managing Flood Risk”, which was published last July, underscores the fact that

“The current model for allocating flood defence funding is biased towards protecting property, which means that funding is largely allocated to urban areas.”

Affected members of the local farming community will no doubt concur with the Committee’s view that

“Defra’s failure to protect rural areas poses a long term risk to the security of UK food production”.

Once again, the rural penalty rears its head.

There is little doubt that, whatever the root cause, the Environment Agency has significantly reduced its maintenance activity. Affected residents, local councillors and flood wardens in the worst hit areas of my constituency are unequivocal in saying that the Environment Agency is no longer clearing rivers and streams and, in some cases, is actively preventing farmers and local landowners from doing so on environmental grounds. To quote one senior councillor, the Environment Agency has

“failed on all their own priorities—people displaced, property ruined, water voles (presumably) drowned”.

I am aware that dredging is not a suitable course of action in every instance. However, in my view, there should not be institutional resistance to such action if, in specific cases, it can lessen the damaging impact of the kind of excessive and prolonged floodwaters that some communities in North Dorset have been experiencing year on year.

Regrettably, villagers who have experienced repeat flooding say that they have been “patted on the head” and told that “nothing can be done”. Frustrated local flood wardens tell of battling against multiple agencies that pass the buck among themselves or veto works that contradict their particular beliefs, and that act only when homes are seriously flooded and not before.

It has taken one flood warden in my constituency nearly seven years to persuade the Environment Agency and the local highways teams that repeat flooding in his village could be better managed if they would just take a look down the drains. When several visits from me and the local media finally convinced them to do that, it quickly became apparent that lack of maintenance had rendered the village drainage system totally defunct. Suddenly, three heavy-duty pumps, which had previously been unavailable, appeared to clear the water, and a commitment to improve the system was secured from Dorset county council, which is the local highways authority. By that time, the village’s main access road had been under water for some seven weeks. The local GP surgery had been forced to close temporarily, and the only village shop estimated that it had lost a devastating £20,000 in turnover.

I share my constituents’ views and experiences here today not to lay blame, but to make three simple points. First, those responsible for flood management do not always listen to the people who know their area the best. As a result, faster and perhaps more cost-effective mitigating action is not always considered. Secondly, conservation should not be prioritised over people’s homes and livelihoods. Thirdly, when multiple agencies are responsible for flood management, they must work effectively together for the good of local communities and with local communities, not behind closed doors.

When communities are, understandably, losing faith, good communication and transparency are vital. The weather this winter has certainly been extraordinary, but a modern civilised society should be prepared. I hope that the Government will learn from the misery my constituents have suffered this winter, and react quickly and favourably to Dorset’s imminent Bellwin scheme claim.