Flooding

Debate between Robin Walker and Laurence Robertson

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I have to say that there is very little chance of his going red, as far as I know. He makes a good point, and he knows far more than I do about the financing of the Army.

The Government response in my area was certainly very good, and a number of the schemes that have been built there in the past few years have also been very successful. Nevertheless, three of the four roads that serve the town of Tewkesbury were closed, and the situation was becoming serious. Sadly, a number of houses were also flooded. I say “houses”, but I should rephrase that. They are people’s homes. Some homes in Sandhurst and Longford, which are villages just down the River Severn, were flooded for the third time in not very many years, and it was heartbreaking to visit them. The challenge, which I want to discuss with the Government, is how we can avoid such flooding in the future.

It has been acknowledged that the Government cannot control the weather, and we seem to have experienced rather different weather cycles over the past few years. Nobody will have forgotten the terrible floods of 2007, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr Pickles) came to visit Tewkesbury and saw some of the problems that we were facing. Even people on the other side of the world heard about those floods. I have spoken to people in Australia who remember seeing the famous picture of the flooded land surrounding Tewkesbury abbey. The abbey itself did not flood, and neither did an even older church just down the way at Deerhurst—it was built in about the 8th century—even though the village does flood.

The important point, which I am going to have to take up with the Secretary of State, although I raised it in an intervention and he did mention the building, is how vital it is not to continue to build in flood-risk areas. I hear what he says about 10% of the country being at flood risk. I have only a simple education, but I suggest that we do not build in the 10% and concentrate building in the 90%. Surely there is enough room to build the houses that we need.

I want to take up the issue of house building, because of a number of sites in my area that have been given planning permission. One of them is absolutely covered in water—it is at Longford, in an area that floods badly. Permission was granted, on appeal, by the previous Government, but I do not know why that happened. That was six years ago, but the houses have not yet been built. Planning permission has been given for a lot of houses in both Bishop’s Cleeve and Brockworth, but those, too, have not yet been built. I say to my right hon. Friend, and to the Government, that I do not accept that there is this need for housing which is being expressed; this need is being overestimated by the Government. I have raised the issue before and we need to look at the point carefully.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I recognise many of the issues that my hon. Friend from down the River Severn is raising. I do believe that houses need to be built, but does he agree that councillors should play a key role by making sure that they keep a record of flooded sites where some form of planning permission might have been given and, where necessary, use the planning system to protect them better, so that they are protecting the floodplain in the future?

[Mr Robertson]

I agree with my hon. Friend and I am grateful to him for that intervention. However, the councils in my area are saying that the Government are putting so much pressure on them to build a given number of houses that they have no choice but to build them in green-belt and flood-risk areas. I am sorry to have to say it to the Secretary of State but that is what my local councils are telling me. They are saying that they cannot accommodate the number of houses that they will be required to build without impinging on the green belt and without putting them in flood-risk areas. That is open for debate, but that is what my local councils are clearly saying to me. I really need him to examine the situation carefully and as a matter of urgency, because it is causing a very big problem. That issue was raised with the Prime Minister when he came to my constituency a week or so ago.

I wish to raise one or two other points about building in flood-risk areas. First, this issue comes down to what we define as a “flood-risk area”. I understand that the Environment Agency will assess an area as being at flood risk only if it is at risk from river flooding and not if it is at risk of surface water flooding. I would be happy to be corrected on that, but that is the situation as I understand it. Someone whose home is flooded does not really care what kind of water it is or where it has come from, because the situation is bad and they do not want it to happen. Perhaps the Government need to give different advice to the Environment Agency on how it classifies flood-risk areas.

BBC Local Radio

Debate between Robin Walker and Laurence Robertson

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Walker]

I totally accept my hon. Friend’s point, albeit, as I declared earlier, my sister works in BBC television, so I have to be rather careful about what I say on that front.

Local radio has an unparalleled information-gathering network, which is why it is such a vital resource in times of trouble or crisis, when local knowledge matters.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend again, but may I give a specific example of local radio acting in a time of crisis? During the terrible floods of 2007, when people lost their lives and others lost water and electricity supplies, BBC Radio Gloucestershire was invaluable in providing vital, life-saving information. We lose that service at our peril.

[Mr Walker]

I agree with my hon. Friend completely. I was going to make the point that in the previous debate on this topic, I spoke at some length about the floods in Worcester in 2007. I made exactly the same point about coverage in Worcester.