Newport residents affected by last winter’s flooding of Lukely Brook have asked their local councillor, Chris Whitehouse, to register with the Isle of Wight Council their disappointment at the Council’s report setting out its proposed very limited action to reduce the risk of a repeat of the flooding.
The Councillor has written to Council Leader, Cllr Ian Stephens, copying his note to Andrew Turner MP, and backs the local residents who have said:
“We had hoped for far more than this. It has taken many months to prepare, commits to very little and nothing that requires anything other than minimal expenditure. In addition, it is clear that very little interviewing of residents has taken place, which should have happened soon after the event in December and would have revealed far more information to assist in ascertaining cause”.
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Cllr Whitehouse said:
“The local residents feel that more remedial work should be undertaken to facilitate water flow, and that there should be more action by the Environment Agency to reduce the risk of further floods this coming winter. I agree entirely with the view that they express that a 20% (1 in 5 year) risk of a repeat is simply unacceptable. More must be done, by all relevant agencies working together, to make sure this problem is history and does not repeat itself in the near future as it threatens to do.”
Local residents also raise the challenge that the Council’s own report called for a meeting with local residents which does not appear to have been taken forward and Cllr Whitehouse argues:
“It is imperative that such a meeting is now held at an early date since it is clear that a 20% (1 year in 5) risk of repetition is completely unacceptable to the people of Carisbrooke and Newport who were so badly affected last December.”
