THE Leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council has called for significant investment to prevent future flooding incidents in the borough.
Cllr Louise Gittins’ call follows the recent serious flooding in Northwich town centre and flood alerts in Frodsham, which fortunately did not result in any major problems.
She has also urged agencies to work quickly to introduce measures to protect the borough’s communities.
In the aftermath of the recent flooding events, she has written to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) requesting their support in safeguarding the borough against flooding.
Cllr Gittins (pictured above) has also approached United Utilities, to ensure that all agencies involved continue to work together to quickly identify what improvements can be made.
In a letter to United Utilities chief executive Steve Mogford, Cllr Gittins says the council worked with the Environment Agency to install flood defences in Northwich town centre during 2016.
Even though these defences worked, the town centre still flooded in October 2019 and again in the most recent incident.
In her letter, Cllr Gittins says: “I am grateful for the ongoing dialogue between our teams, and the work to establish the causes and solutions to the severe flooding we have experienced twice in just 15 months. A number of recommendations from the interim report have already been acted upon, without which we may have been in an even more dangerous situation last week. However, it is clear from the latest event associated with Storm Christoph that Northwich town centre remains susceptible to severe and unacceptable flooding from surface water, which in some places was as high as 4ft deep.”
At the height of the latest flooding, the council worked to evacuate more than 100 residents from their homes. Over 60 businesses in Northwich were affected. The council is now working to support them with their recovery plans.
Cllr Gittins adds: “Urgent action is now required for the areas affected by Storm Christoph and in particular Northwich town centre. I hope you are now able to commit the expertise and resources of your teams to work with us on the next stage of this review; identifying where significant investment may be necessary, and delivering that investment as quickly as possible. I also encourage United Utilities to immediately implement contingency measures, to provide assurance that surface water flooding will be mitigated as far as practically possible.”
The council has also announced a full-scale review into the latest flooding incidents. The findings of this review will be made public in due course.
•You can view the interim report on the 2019 flooding here: www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/documents/Your-streets/northwich-section-19-interim-report.pdf