‘Potential for more flooding’ in Somerset as army on standby

peaking at a press conference, Deputy Chief Executive of Somerset county council Pat Flaherty praised the military for “coming in at short notice” following a meeting of the government’s Cobra committee on Wednesday.

The military would not be taking a lead role, because the fire service nationally had provided the specialist vehicles and trained staff that had been required but, said Ms Flaherty the miltary would remain on standby:

“With potential for high winds and high tides and more rain passing through and falling on an already soaked catchment we have potential for further flooding over the weekend and with that ongoing flooding for a number of weeks to come.

Read more - UK weather: rain, gales and waves threaten more floods

“With that in mind we’re still working very closely with the military who remain in Somerset, planning with us and we also have the resilience of knowing that their equipment and personnel are ready to be mobilised should we require them.”

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told Channel 4 News that military personnel were in Somerset on Thursday to assess the situation.

Wettest January for over a century

The Met Office has issued yellow weather warnings for significant rain on Friday and Saturday. It announced on Thursday that with three days of the month still to go, southeast and central southern England had already had its wettest January since 1910.

The area from East Devon to Kent and inland across parts of the midlands has already seen twice the average rainfall for the month. Across southwest England and south Wales the 222.6mm of rainfall up to 28 January makes this the wettest January since 1995, when 224.4mm fell.

The UK as a whole has seen 35 per cent more rainfall than the long-term average. However northern Scotland has received less than the average rainfall so far this month (83 per cent).

Delay in action

As more resources are deployed in Somerset, there has been some confusion over why help has been so long in coming.

On 24 January, Bridgwater and West Somerset’s Conservative MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger, appealed to the prime minister for the military to be deployed if the situation worsened. Sedgemoor District Council backed by Somerset County Council, declared a major incident in bid to get long-term help from central government.

On 27 January, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson was met with hostility when he visited Somerset, with farmers, politicians and church leaders demanding immediate action to alleviate what furious residents described as “third world” conditions.

On 29 January, Mr Paterson said the county council had only asked for assistance “for the first time today”.

Mr Paterson told journalists: “As the flooding in Somerset continues and with the risk of further coastal flooding this weekend, I have chaired a Cobra meeting to make sure that we are doing everything we can to assist those affected.

“Dredging will be carried out in the Somerset Levels as soon as it is safe do so and extra sandbags are being made available to those who need them. The Ministry of Defence is also working with the Department for Communities and Local Government to identify what immediate support they can give to the local residents.

“Following my visit to Somerset at the weekend, I have ordered a definitive local action plan to be agreed by local and national agencies which will deliver robust defences against floods over the next 20 years.”

But a council spokesman said the authority had been discussing with the military for weeks the possibility of bringing in manpower, sandbags and amphibious vehicles and that the pace been increased following Mr Paterson’s visit on Monday.

A spokesman told Channel 4 News: “Military have been a regular member of conversation with all partners since the early days of the flooding.”

Somerset county council’s Deputy Chief Executive Pat Flaherty, said: “We are now getting the very fast response that we have appealed for and that is what residents in Somerset who have faced up to this flooding crisis for more than a month really deserve.”

Mr Liddell-Grainger added: “The government is in constant consultation with local councils and the various agencies working on the ground and an overall assessment of the situation is now being carried out.

“Whether we actually need to call in troops will depend very much on what the weather does.

“In the meantime we must concentrate on pumping away as much water as the rivers will carry while we work up plans for ensuring that once the floods have subsided we can start work to prevent such a horrific situation being repeated next winter.”

Public money

John Osman, Conservative leader of Somerset County Council, said military might would give beleaguered residents the chance to repair their battered properties, with the village of Muchelney cut off since the turn of the year because of flooded roads.

He said: “The council had actually planned to get some amphibious vehicles in, paid for by public money, because this situation really needed to be sorted out. People’s homes and properties have been under flood water for weeks.

“We were due to place an order imminently, but the government saying the military will be involved has saved the public purse that money.”

Earlier in the week, Mr Osman was talking tough. On Monday he told reporters he was “hugely disappointed” that central Government had not announced any additional funding. But he pledged:

“we will continue to keep the pressure on to secure a fair deal for Somerset’s residents.

“We are happy to work with Government and other agencies to draw up a long-term plan to protect our communities against flooding but I want to be clear that this is not the end of our fight to lobby Government to support our flood-hit communities.”

Pressed by local MPs Jeremy Browne and David Heath at Commons questions, Mr Cameron said more pumps would be brought in to remove water as soon as there is capacity in rivers to support it.

And he promised that departments across Whitehall, including Transport, Communities and Local Government, and the Treasury, would work together to crack the problem.

Dredging

Many parts of the Levels have been flooded since Christmas and there are fears it could be many months before the water is completely pumped away.

Environment Agency (EA) teams have been running dozens of pumps 24 hours a day to drain an estimated 1.5 million tonnes of water (equivalent to 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools) off the Levels.

Drainage experts blame two decades of under-investment in flood defence work for turning the Levels into a “disaster area” and said it was “very, very urgent” that rivers are dredged to prevent more damage to homes, livelihoods and wildlife.

The EA has come under fire from MPs and local councils, but insists that increased dredging of the rivers would not have prevented the recent flooding and was “often not the best long-term or economic solution”.

Mr Heath, the Liberal Democrat MP for Somerset and Frome, welcomed the army’s assistance and the promise of dredging in the future.

He told the Daily Telegraph: “It seems that we have a real sense of urgency now from the government as to what we need in Somerset.”

Mr Heath said he had suggested at the weekend involving the military, adding: “We have the RNAS Yeovilton, the commando helicopter force, on our doorstep. We have got 40 Commando Royal Marines just up the road and we could certainly use, I think, Royal Engineer support as well.”

The Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium (IDB), which brings together a wealth of practical expertise and experience on every aspect of water management, has drawn up a 10-point plan to reduce the risk of prolonged and deep flooding on the Somerset Levels and Moors.

• Maximise the conveyance of the lowland rivers in Somerset and maintain them. 
• Construct a tidal exclusion sluice on the River Parrett as already exists on other rivers in Somerset. 
• All land and property owners in Somerset to contribute to the funding of flood risk management work within their catchments. 
• Increase soil infiltration and store more flood water in the upper catchments. 
• Reduce urban run-off. 
• Promote flood resilience and property level protection in the whole catchment. 
• Promote and assist the relocation of very flood vulnerable households out of the floodplain. 
• Acknowledge and provide assistance to land owners on moors identified as flood storage areas. 
• Provide assistance to farmers and others to adapt their businesses in areas used for flood storage. 
• Assist farms in flood storage moors to become resilient to flooding and provide assistance to relocate intensive farming activities out of the floodplain with assisted land swops.