Agenda item

The Chief Executive reported that a number of questions had been received under Standing Order 35.

 

Question asked by a member of the public regarding flooding in Sileby and Cossington in 2024.

“Please would you be able to update on the specific actions that LCC have taken to reduce flooding on back of the flooding that occurred on 2 January 2024 which effected residents across Leicestershire and specifically Sileby and Cossington

With Leicestershire again being hit with devastating floods on the 6 Jan 2025 what actions are you putting in place so this event doesn’t repeat for a third year in a row.”

 

Reply by the Chairman

 

“As you have alluded to, the County has been significantly impacted by the floods on 6 January, with over 600 properties being internally flooded across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

 

The Council is aware that Sileby and Cossington were two of the many communities impacted by this event as they were a year ago during Storm Henk and we fully sympathise with those who have been affected.

 

Flooding can come from a range of different sources and there are many different responsible bodies, organisations or individuals and flood risk management requires a partnership approach between agencies and the community, as detailed in the Local Flood Risk Management Strategy. www.leicestershire.gov.uk/environment-and-planning/flooding-and-drainage/flood-risk-management.

 

In its role as Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA), as the Council did and continues to do following Storm Henk, the Council will collate information from those flooded to aid investigation and understand what happened in more detail. Please report any incidences to the Council’s flooding@leics.gov.uk mailbox. As with Storm Henk, and also Storm Babet a few months prior, the high volumes of impacted communities across the County has generated a significant amount of investigative work for the Council’ Flood Risk Management team, which will take some time to get through.

 

As such, there is still investigative work to do following Storm Henk and clearly there will be more following events this month, but actions taken so far include:-

 

·       Seven public drop-in sessions being held throughout Leicestershire, including in Loughborough and County Hall, where all of the responsible agencies were represented to allow any member of the public to discuss any flooding concerns and to also learn how they could become flood ready.

·       The assessment of a potential bridge removal at Cygnet Close, Sileby in partnership with the Environment Agency. This will take time including modelling and review of output to ensure that removal does not exacerbate flooding and creates betterment and then identifying and securing funding.

·       The identification of works required to a Severn Trent Water sewer in Cossington.

·       The administration of the £5,000 Property Flood Resilience Repair Grants on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. Some property owners in Cossington and Sileby have been able to benefit from these grants. There is still time for residents whose properties were flooded during Storms Babet or Henk to apply for this grant at the following link: www.leicestershire.gov.uk/environment-and-planning/flooding-and-drainage/property-flood-resilience-repair-grant.

·       The promotion, recruitment and training of local flood wardens to help promote local resilience.

 

While there is work to do to understand the impacts and what happened during the latest event in more detail, what the Council is aware of is that there was a prolonged and intense level of rainfall, compounded by snow melt on the already saturated, and also in some places, frozen ground. This led to the highest ever river levels being recorded (Storm Henk being the second highest recorded), which subsequently overwhelmed tributary watercourses and other drainage systems. 

 

Unfortunately, with Sileby and Cossington being in close proximity to the River Soar, both communities will continue to be at risk, particularly during events of that magnitude. Ultimately, it is not possible to guarantee there will not be a repeat event in the next 12 months.

 

While, in its role as the LLFA, the Council will do everything within its powers and work with other agencies to identify the cause and any potential preventative solutions (as the Council have already have done so, as illustrated above), the stark reality is that there may not be a viable long-term solution that eliminates the risk of flooding for all residents, so the Council encourages residents to ‘Be Flood Ready’, know their flood risk, and work to make their properties more resilient by installing protection measures”.

 

www.leicestershire.gov.uk/environment-and-planning/flooding-and-drainage/prepare-for-flooding.

 

Secondly, there were a number of questions from the Stoney Stanton Flood Action Group which related to the questions and replies given to local residents in Stoney Stanton at the meeting of the Highways and Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 7 November 2024. Although not usual practice, due to the strength of feeling from the local residents of Stoney Stanton the Chairman accepted the questions but agreed with Officers that regrettably the questions submitted were not able to be answered in advance of the meeting. Officers had been working on an update in relation to work in Stoney Stanton and the Flood Action Group have therefore been provided with a position statement on the ongoing situation in Stoney Stanton and Officers would endeavour to answer any questions not specifically addressed in the position Statement in writing in six weeks where possible.”

 

Questions asked by the Stoney Stanton Flood Action Group

 

The Chairman reported that a number of questions had been received from the Stoney Stanton Flood Action Group (SSFAG) which related to the questions and replies given to local residents in Stoney Stanton at the last Committee meeting held in November 2024.

The Chairman emphasised that it wasn’t the Council’s usual process to allow questions similar to any raised in the previous six months.  However, due to the strength of feeling of residents and the SSFAG he had agreed to allow these, copies of which had been shared with all members of the Committee.  The Chairman asked the SSFAG, however,  if submitting any more questions in the future to ensure these did not include lengthy background material and context and that they raised new issues.

In response to the questions raised, the Chairman commented that as there had been significant flooding across the County in recent weeks the Flooding Team had needed to respond to this current emergency as an urgent priority. He had therefore agreed with officers that regrettably he would not be able to answer the questions submitted in advance of the meeting.  Officers were already working on an update in relation to work in Stoney Stanton and the Flood Action Group had therefore been provided with a copy of the position statement regarding the ongoing situation in Stoney Stanton, a copy of which was filed with these minutes. 

A copy of the questions raised and this position statement had been shared with all members of the Committee and published on the Council’s website and Members had also received copies of some photographs that the SSFAG had provided in support of their additional questions, though in accordance with the Council’s usual practice these would not be published on the website.

 

The Chairman advised that officers would endeavour to answer any individual questions which were not specifically addressed in the position statement in writing in six weeks, where possible and that these would be shared with Committee members and published on the Councils website in due course. 

 

At this point in the meeting, although not usually permitted, the Chairman allowed Mrs Elizabeth Perry, a representative of the Stoney Stanton Flood Action Group, to make the following brief statement:

 

“We had very little notice that we would be able to do this so I am going to have to read this from my notes. I want to talk about a short summary we have created about the current situation we find ourselves in. I n 1992 several of the Mount Sorrell Cottages that’s number 13 to 22 flooded, as flood alleviation a pipe was installed by the Council from the access road between the cottages into the flood plain which worked perfectly well until the Bellway Housing development. Numerous planning applications were made to Blaby District Council over a number of years which were rejected on recommendation from the Environment Agency because of flooding and opposed by the residents who had long standing knowledge of the enormous volume of water the flood plain held. On the last application, Blaby District Council approached the Environment agency who said they were no longer a consultee, this was now the role of the LLFA. Please refer to the previous reports, the LLFA were unable to make specific recommendations at the time due to their lack of expertise without approval Blaby granted permission to Bellway Developers. Residents were assured that everything had been accounted for in the modelling and Bellway were putting in adequate measures including attenuation ponds to make sure we wouldn’t flood. These measures have been insufficient as in October 2019 35 properties flooded in Stoney Stanton and were it not for the resilience of the residents would have flooded several times more since. Again, on 6 January 2025 the ongoing issues were apparent at residents were on flood watch from 4am and pumping water for most of the day. After the floods of 2019, there were investigations which showed that the pipe that had been placed in 1990 had been capped by Bellway contractors. This pipe has been described in the Section 19 report as misconnected. Everyone knows that this pipe is a major factor of flooding and we are perplexed as why the LLFA continue to cover up the fact. 

 

We flooded again on the 6 January 2025 and submitted questions to the Scrutiny Committee on 8 January 2025 and an Officer from the County Council made an unannounced visit on 9 January 2025. At that time one of the residents who had lived in the cottages for over 50 years spoke to the Officer about residents’ concerns and residents want to know what the Officers from either Blaby district council or LCC are aware off as residents feel that their voices are not being heard and issues addressed. We appreciate there has been a lot of flooding across the County but the issue in Stoney Stanton in man-made and preventable. Residents feel there is a disconnect between the local residents and the Council with the LLFA focussed on a long term multi million pound scheme focussed on future developments and not existing issues. There are numerous problems with drainage pipes and riparian owner responsibilities in Stressline identified in the Section 19 report of the 2019 flood which remains unaddressed. This report itself was inaccurate as was the modelling used in the planning of the Bellway development on a flood plain.

 

Other repeated issues from the 6 January are the unknown water source, Stressline, riparian issues Boundary Farm and Robertson Close.

 

In conclusion, we would be grateful now you have heard the background information if Members of the Committee can study the SSFAG analysis from the last meeting in November when only one of our 16 questions were addressed and we would like to take the opportunity to invite members of the Committee on a site visit to see our issues for yourself.”