It looks like we are lucky in that we live on high ground here in the Black Country, when you read and see on the news the devastating floods hitting the towns and cities that have been built around rivers and streams, Beck’s and brook’s. It looks like it is…sheer devastation and heart break.
It makes it even harder for those folks that have been flooded, not once, nor twice over the last few years, many more times than that. During crisis you look to National Government and Local Government to give a lead.
It is demoralising to find out that the National Government appear to have learned no lesson’s at all from the previous floods in Cumbria and Yorkshire. To read for instance that the flood defence operation in York was abandoned, because the operation control centre itself could not function correctly because it was flooded?! Well it is revelations like that which leaves you stunned. That and the fact that instead of increased spending on these ‘red areas’ for floods…Government cut back on flood defence schemes that may have given relief.
This Government has been ‘a sleep on its watch’, and no matter now how much the PM and the Chancellor keep talking up what they will do to provide relief on the TV now, that will not compensate for their dereliction of duty in the first place. After the last flooding – resources should have been in place to ensure the thousands of people affected this time had a chance of keeping their homes dry. I do hope the Labour Party exposes this shameful action, if it can tear itself away from attacking itself.
The Nation wants answers, and the citizens are themselves asking pointed questions relating to overseas flood aid, at the expense of local schemes of importance. There is a sense of huge concern for the people who have been flooded, and rightly so. Come on Labour start asking those important questions, of why this flooding has happened, hiding behind ‘storms once in a hundred years’ will no longer wash for the Government. Why has the flood defence systems been overwhelmed, has the Funding been spent quickly enough on flood defence?, Who is testing the systems, how much has been axed from flood defence?
In the meantime I urge the Local Government Association to ask its Members what can Local Government do to alleviate the misery of those flooded now, and speed up the clear – up.
Linthouse Lane Wednesfield Just a few years back, after torrential rain ran off fields, blocking local drains.
I for my part will be asking a series of questions relating to the local drainage systems here in Wolverhampton and what level of preparedness are we at in case of a local flooding breach.
