Flood Defences (Leeds)

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, whose constituency has also been devastated by the floods.

The point is that important infrastructure sites such as the Vodafone site off Kirkstall Road and the power substation on Redcote Lane were not protected and were badly damaged on Boxing day. In Kirkstall, in my constituency, the consequences for the local economy of having no investment in flood defences is devastating. Businesses will leave, and new businesses will not come. We risk creating ghost towns if we take no action.

Last week, I and my fellow Leeds MPs—all eight of us—along with Leeds City Council leader Judith Blake and the council chief executive Tom Riordan, met the Secretary of State to ask for the reinstatement of the flood defence scheme in Leeds. We welcomed her saying that further flood protection for Leeds was a priority for the Government, but we were disappointed that no firm commitment was made to provide funding—not even the £3 million required to commence urgent design and preparatory work for flood defences over and above phase 1. We need that money for flood defences if we are to turn her commitment into a reality. I fully appreciate the budgetary challenges relating to flood defences, but we must all acknowledge the significance of the flooding arising from Storm Eva and the significant economic risk that the city of Leeds, and thus the UK economy, will therefore face without adequate investment in flood defences.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, and I am pleased that she has been able to secure this debate. I, too, welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has said that flood protection for Leeds is a priority. I have also had a meeting with the Chancellor, who has promised to look at this matter personally. Although there is a role for Government, does she agree that there is also a role for local councils in looking at where future housing will be built, because the rain that may fall in my constituency could have a severely adverse effect on her constituency?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Leeds City Council helped to fund phase 1 of the flood defence scheme in Leeds, recognising that it was important to make that contribution to protect our city. Of course we need to consider where housing is built, and it is right, as the Secretary of State has said, to look at the whole catchment area, and not just at the parts of the river that flood. As the hon. Gentleman will agree, we need £3 million to carry out an urgent feasibility study to see what the flood defence scheme will look like. That said, we need the flood defence scheme to protect our city. Many constituents from Pudsey rely on the A65 and the train links to get to work, so the problem affects both our constituencies.

Flooding

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

My constituency is probably one of the highest constituencies in the city of Leeds, and on two sides of the valley we would probably not expect to see too much flooding. That said, on Boxing day I foolishly agreed to do the Chevin chase, which is a 7-mile run up the Chevin and along footpaths that starts near my home. We had had constant rainfall over the preceding weeks, but as we got on to Carlton Lane I was surprised to see the levels of water. Usually there is a little trickle down Carlton Lane, but this time the full width of the road was running like a river, and on top of the Chevin it was even worse. I have never seen anything like it. I knew at that point that it was going to be bad further downstream and particularly towards the city centre.

We have had localised flooding in my area. At Guiseley retail park some shops were affected. In Horsforth, lanes were closed and the River Aire burst its banks, as it did at Rodley. Even though the localised flooding was bad, it was much worse further downriver in the constituency of the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves). As we know, the River Aire was at 3.3 metres. The retail parks were affected and flooded, as were the services that my constituents use along the busy A65, and all the trains going into Leeds and Bradford were cancelled.

There has been much talk recently of the Leeds flood defence scheme, and it is clear that we must get this right and look at it properly. I was pleased to join my fellow MPs from the city, cross-party, in asking for a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and I was grateful yesterday to hear her commitment that we will have defences and that she will meet us. However, we must make sure that we get it right. We cannot afford for a major economic driver in Yorkshire to be at risk and for these poor people to go through such things again.

It is also important to ensure that we get it right further downstream. In communities further down the line, such as Elmet and Rothwell and Brigg and Goole, we need to make sure that there are no unintended consequences. Upstream, what we do in areas like mine will have a knock-on effect. I have raised on many occasions my concern about plans to build on the green belt. The council is planning to build more than 70,000 homes, which means that we need to find the sites for them. In my constituency, we have built on the brownfield sites and now we have only the green belt to look at, and some of those sites are flooding now. The Ings Lane site, where 300 houses are proposed to be built, looked like a lake. In the Wills Gill gate area, where hundreds of houses are proposed, it was exactly the same picture. In Horsford, over 700 houses are being built on the field between the A65 and the River Aire. If we are going to build there, we need to be sure that we know where that water is going to go.

As Jennifer Kirkby, the chair of the neighbourhood forum said, the council needs to think about how the whole city works, not build on floodplains, and we need to listen to the experience of local people. Another constituent said to me that we need to be a lot smarter about the concept of mitigation of run-on from these developments, because it is not just about rates of run-off but volume. Otherwise people further down the river will be severely affected. I hope that we will learn from the experiences that we have suffered in Leeds, across Yorkshire, and across the country.

In conclusion, I pay tribute to all the people at Leeds City Council, to the volunteers, to the businesses, and indeed to Ministers, who took the time to contact us all, and to Leeds Community Foundation for setting up an appeal that I hope people will support to help people in Leeds.

Flooding

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Dieter’s appointment was made mid-December, so we are currently working on the committee’s terms of reference for the next five years. Combining this with our 25-year plan for the environment, and making sure we are looking at things on the basis of river basins and water catchment, is a great priority. We need to spend Government money more effectively. We need to understand better the interactions between our environmental measures, flood risk and flood management. That is very important. This is not something that can be achieved overnight. It takes thinking over a number of years. Planting trees and putting in upstream measures takes time. Building up flood defences takes time. That is why it is also important that we have a very strong emergency response effort. We are thinking about those things for the long term, which is why we set out, for the first time ever, a six-year plan for flood defences. It is why we are working on a 25-year environment plan, so that that is in place for the future.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute to all those who worked so hard to help the victims, particularly in reopening the roads and rail routes to Leeds which many of my constituents use. I am sure all Leeds colleagues would like to take the Secretary of State up on her offer to meet to discuss the Leeds scheme. In the meantime, the council has said that it could do with using the emergency funds to revise phases 2 and 3 of the Leeds scheme. Can she can confirm whether that would be possible?