Flooding (Cornwall) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Sheryll Murray
Main Page: Sheryll Murray (Conservative - South East Cornwall)Department Debates - View all Sheryll Murray's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Flooding (Cornwall)
Sheryll Murray Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
I praise my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert), for securing this debate. I also thank the Minister for the prompt communication that his Department had with me and, I am sure, my hon. Friend, when the flooding and the serious situation in Lostwithiel in my constituency first became known.
I reiterate the points that my hon. Friend made about the Bellwin formula. Cornwall’s transition to a unitary council happened a couple of years ago. Sadly, this formula is outdated. Will the Minister consider updating and reviewing it so that it does not act against unitary authorities in future incidents?
I praise the work of Cornwall council and the Environment Agency. I accept that nobody could have predicted the level of flooding that we saw in Lostwithiel, particularly, which resulted from surface flooding rather than the normal, historical flooding. It may not happen again for another 100 years, but we have to get the message out to the community, and to other communities that could be affected, to ensure not only that they put in place flood prevention measures when they get the warnings, but that at least lockable metal gates are put on doors every evening to prevent the kind of damage that we saw from happening.
Just before Christmas, many businesses in Lostwithiel were flooded when they should be preparing for a busy time, and a lot of their stock was damaged. I praise the insurance companies for sending their loss adjustors, who were working hard on the ground with people. I drove through Lostwithiel at the weekend and business is going on as usual. I praise the community for showing resilience and community spirit to ensure that business carried on as best it could as soon as possible.
I should like to hear from the Minister about the Bellwin formula, and about any ideas that he has that my hon. Friend and I can put in place to help the community prevent flooding, which is expensive—I know that there is no money to do that in these economic times—and to prevent flood damage so that if it happened again, the properties of the people of Lostwithiel might be saved.