Environment
| TOP STORIES |  | | | | | | | FEATURES | | | | | | MAYOR NEWS | | | | TRAVEL | | | | COMPETITIONS | | |
|
|
|
REDBRIDGE: Flood protection 'under-funding' could spell disaster
 |
| Redbridge Flood Forum chairman Richard Cooper |
Environmentalists have slammed the pitiful' funding available to protect the borough's drains from flooding.
A total of £50,000 has been earmarked from Redbridge Council for replacing failing water pipes this year, but council officers admit that problems continue to mount and a long-term solution is needed.
Redbridge Flood Forum (RFF) chairman Richard Cooper, of Gordon Road, Wanstead, said that it was not good enough in an area extremely prone to flooding.
He added: "It's a tremendously small amount of money when you consider the size of the borough. It really is pitiful."
In a report for councillors, officers wrote: "There are significant highway drain-age problems along the High Road, Woodford from Whitehall Road to Empress Avenue and at numerous other locations across the borough.
"Tree roots have infiltrated the council's failing highway drainage connections to the main public sewers causing blockages, and further investigations have confirmed damage to drainage pipes which will need replacing."
The River Roding flowed through more than 1,000 homes when it burst its banks in 2000, and it was placed on flood alert by the Environment Agency again as recently as January.
Former RFF chairman Rev Ken Hyde, of Broadmead Baptist Church, Chigwell Road, Woodford Green, thinks a lot of people do not realise that every drop of rain that falls ends up in the local river.
The minister, whose church was one of the properties devastated by the flood, said: "The Environment Agency has come up with proposals and the rest is the responsibility of central government to come up with funding.
"They are obviously not dealing with it as the priority which it deserves.
"But I don't think that there's any doubt that with the problems they've had with floods up north that funding is going elsewhere."
A council spokesman said: "The budget of £50,000 referred to in the report to the Corporate Capital Programme Panel relates only to highways drainage and is part of an ongoing programme to repair/renew areas of aging highway drainage for which the council is responsible.
"The council is not solely responsible for flooding in its area. Its role is secondary to that of Thames Water and the Environment Agency.
"The council's recent budget process also allocated a revenue sum of £250,000 to assist it tackle flooding in the borough, and these funds will be used for works to reduce flood risk and also to assist the council's response to any future major flooding incidents."
8:13am Thursday 20th March 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
