Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of levels of local authority preparedness to respond to flood alerts in (a) Surrey and (b) Surrey Heath constituency.

Across all catchments in the Thames area, including those in Surrey and Surrey Heath, the Environment Agency (EA) continues to monitor potential flood risk, and its field staff have undertaken flood runs clearing debris.

The Surrey Local Resilience Forum (LRF) brings together all agencies, including local authorities, with a significant role to play in responding to and recovering from the effects of emergencies, such as flooding. LRFs aim to plan and prepare for localised incidents and catastrophic emergencies. The EA works closely with Surrey Prepared, a subgroup of Surrey LRF that looks at flood resilience across the wider county.

The EA has recently produced new flood risk modelling of the Addlestone Bourne catchment. This was published as part of wider improvements earlier this year, providing greater understanding of the flood risk posed to our communities.