Flooding: Ribble Valley — House of Commons, 2017-01-18
Topic: Public Lands
Nigel Martin Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope that many lessons will be learned. Any funding that is made available ought to be claimed—I remember the big argument about claiming European flood money, but we all pay into that, so we are only getting our own money back—but it took ages before we did that, which was a huge mistake. We should have known about it from the very beginning. I was told about how complicated it was to claim the money, so that must be sorted out. When one is paying into an insurance fund, claiming our own money back should not involve so much officer time and the filling in of so many pages. Many lessons need to be learned by the council, and by government more generally, to avoid adding to a tragedy through action or inaction I also want to praise the refuse collectors. One would not expect to see them the day after Boxing day. There are few sadder pictures in my mind than seeing refuse people backing up into a street on the day after Boxing day and loading Christmas trees into the back of their vehicle because people were clearing their whole houses. It was a very sad picture, never mind that those people were already under stress. There was one lady whose husband was dying, and in addition to all her problems she was having to clear out her house. Some people are still not back in their home a year on. Big questions have to be asked about the resilience of some properties. The Minister has produced her own report on the flooding, and I hope a lot will be learned from it I also praise councillors Terry Hill, Joyce Holgate, Albert Atkinson, Ged Mirfin and others. Councillors came from all over the area. Even if their areas were not flooded, they came to give assistance. I also praise Sir James Bevan and the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who turned up the day after Boxing day—I could not believe it, but there they were, walking through the village in wellington boots. I was able to show them some of the damage, and Sir James looked into the River Calder and could see the damage for himself. A lot of the damage is still there. One would have thought that one of the farmhouses over at the other end would not have been touched, but it was way underwater Some insurance companies were prompt, and others were not—their answerphones were switched on and saying, "We are on holiday. Please get in touch on 28 or 29 December." When such colossal flooding is affecting so many thousands of people, one would have thought that all the insurance companies would be there to help Andrew Ronnan created the Whalley and Billington flood action group by drawing on the expertise that can be found in any large village and its surrounding areas, including civil engineers and people with knowledge of flood prevention. The group has regular meetings in order to liaise with the lead flood authority—Lancashire County Council—Ribble Valley Borough Council and the Environment Agency on the long-term plan. We have to do that, because these once-in-a-lifetime events are now happening quite regularly. Action must be taken against anything preventable that can lead to the misery I saw that day. Some of that action relates to the river, and other action relates to the housing that is being built, particularly in Whalley, on a rather large scale It might be useful if I talk about that housing. One section, Lawson Rise, is being developed in part by Redrow. There should be drainage ponds in the scheme to allow for water attenuation. Well, Redrow has been merrily building the houses, but the ponds simply have not happened. Redrow itself said that the ponds needed to happen, and they have not happened. I understand that there may be problems with the design and with where the ponds should go, but the reality is that Redrow is now in breach of the conditions set by the local authority. The people at Redrow still think it is okay to build the houses, sell them and get people moving in. Well, it is not. They have a responsibility to the people who are going to live on that estate and to the people who may be affected by the building of those houses and other houses that will be built on the same plot. It is their responsibility to ensure that all of the area is properly drained and that the water that runs off is retained. How dare they not take the action that they should at this moment in time? How dare they think it is okay to carry on building those houses without putting in the proper attenuation?