The Sustainability Committee in the National Assembly for Wales has today launched its report on flooding. Angela Burns AM a member of the committee said at the launch:
This report is all about people, something easily lost amongst departments and laws and red tape and funding issues. The stories we heard, the evidence we saw, brought home time and time again the complete devastation a flood can cause and the absolute misery, the emotional and physical impact and financial hardship that serial flooding causes.
We spoke to people who have suffered a 1 in 100 year flood, 2 years running and unless something radically changes, it’s on the cards for this year too. We saw elderly folk trying to clear up and cope without help & support, young children frightened to move back into their home in case the water came in the night whilst they slept and people simply struggling, who lie awake at night whenever there is persistent rain, who have lost weight through stress, who can’t sleep properly, who are on anti-depressants and sleeping pills, who won’t leave their homes for any length of time and who are quietly going broke.
This report is about the human story, it’s a report informed by people, for people.
But make no mistake; this is not a sentimental report.
These stories formed the backdrop but we then investigated the cold hard facts, the realities of over stretched services and under funded solutions. We looked at some of the crass stupidities of building in areas of high flood risk, of not protecting the vital infrastructure we need to keep going, of the mish mash of communications, the confusion of multiple agencies dealing with different types of water, the vested interests of some groups, the enormity of the problem and the science that tells all of us that this issue isn’t going away and the time has come to deal with it. And that time is here, now, today, tomorrow, this year. Because if we don’t the consequences will become immeasurably more difficult to deal with, people will lose heart and faith and the financial costs to the public and private purse will become unmanageable.
Of these important recommendations I would like to pick out just a few for special attention here.
Recommendation 1 is that we have ONE organisation to become THE single point of contact. Time and time again we heard of the complete confusion felt by those being flooded as to whom they should call. Was their water to be dealt with by their Local Council, the Environment Agency, Welsh Water, the Highways Agency? People were being pushed around from pillar to post and what happens when the water pouring in through your back door is coming from the stream behind your house and the water through your front door is coming from the skies bouncing off the roads and out of the overwhelmed drains? And this one agency approach should have the remit to ensure that all the other agencies involved in this issue take action. And so Minister, our Number One Recommendation is One Agency, which is what we, the Committee, believe to be the most important step forward and it is what the people need and want.
Recommendations 22 and 23. We learnt the lessons of Gloucester and we understand how key it is to protect infrastructure, not just hospitals and fire stations but fresh water sources, sewage treatment facilities, pumping stations, telecoms. If we are flooded we need these vital tools to be able to respond and recover.
