Flood management funding (From Witney Gazette)

Flood management funding

2:09pm Tuesday 2nd June 2009

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Sir – I am chairman of the Bampton-based Flood Prevention Working Group, which was set up after the July 2007 floods, and which has representatives from Aston, Brize Norton, Clanfield, and Carterton councils.

We were surprised and very disappointed to hear from the Environment Agency that, because of funding problems, we could not expect the agency to carry out any maintenance work on rivers or streams in a huge area to the south west of Witney.

We were briefed that the agency has three categories of waterways, which give an indication of the degree of damage to property or danger to persons should the river or stream burst its banks.

These are high, medium and low consequence.

The agency has only sufficient funding for the maintenance of high consequence waterways in this area, which is bounded by Burford, Lechlade, Aston, and Witney.

Only the River Windrush has a “high” category.

We were told that, in future, all obstructions must be cleared by the riparian owners, who are the farmers or villagers whose land abuts the waterway.

The riparian owner would be unlikely to be allowed by EA to de-silt the waterway.

The working group is very concerned that the ”medium” and “low” consequence waterways would not be monitored closely, and that riparian owners would not have the expertise or the desire to undertake such essential maintenance.

The idea of village volunteer groups carrying out the work is fraught with problems, such as insurance cover, lack of expertise or heavy equipment and the risk of flooding villages downstream by increasing flow rates.

Our working group feels strongly that the Government must properly fund and staff the EA, so that flood management is rightly in the hands of just one effective agency.

This, not surprisingly, was the main conclusion of the various major studies following the 2007 disasters.

David Hawkins, Bampton Parish Council

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