Flood-hit councils’ joint appeal for aid

01 November 2007

Leaders from all of Oxfordshire’s councils have written to the Government requesting help to meet the £3.3M funding shortfall resulting from the county’s floods.

Letters have been sent to local communities secretary, Hazel Blears, and environment secretary, Hilary Benn. In the joint letter to Blears, the leaders said: ‘Our current estimate is that the net cost to the combined county and district councils will be in excess of £4M, against which, just under £1M will be recoverable and the bulk of that from our insurers.’

They said the Flood Recovery Grant of £965,000 bypassed the councils because it had been mainly paid directly to residents affected. In the letter to Benn, they wrote: ‘We are very concerned by the Association of British Insurers statement that government spending for the next three years is less than we were asking for, even before the floods. ‘It does not begin to address the major issues, including drainage, which were highlighted this summer. ‘There remain a number of financial, engineering and legal issues that require resolution, and we would urge you to press for successful implementation of this important scheme.’ T

hey said some Oxfordshire households had been flooded three times in the past eight years, but there had been no assurances that ‘appropriate and significant steps are being taken by the Environment Agency to ensure that it won’t happen again’.

‘Indeed, we understand the financial constraints on the Environment Agency mean many of those schemes on the agency's national priority list seem unlikely to proceed, including the [Banbury Flood Defence] scheme in Oxford.’ There remain a number of financial, engineering and legal issues related to the scheme that require resolution, despite a recent funding fillip from the EA, they say in the letter.

The cost to highways caused by the summer floods totalled up to £1M, which was below the Bellwin threshold of £2.2M, and the Department for Transport fund threshold of about £2.2M.

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Flood-hit councils’ joint appeal for aid

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