Last night’s public meeting, called to hear resident’s views on the recent floods, gets a bad press today.

Deservedly so as, despite a promising start when the Councils version of the timeline for the critical events of 26^th and 27^th December was published on Thursday, no further written briefings were provided.

The expectation was that a presentation covering what happened, and when, by the Environment Agency would be backed up by an audio visual commentary.

By now, the Agency should have had time to produce maps indicating flooding levels as the weekend progressed, details of the flood alerts/warnings which had been issued and using what channels, while they should also have been able to  explain diagrammatically how the Foss Barrier and its control equipment came to be overwhelmed. 

No attempt was made to do this, and with BT making unlikely claims about the vulnerability of its equipment to flooding and the Council making even less likely claims about the success of its communications response, it is hardly surprising that residents left the meeting feeling frustrated.

So where now?

The Environment Agency is promising that during the next 2 months it will start to invest heavily in upgrading the Foss Barrier.

The Council has promised a “public inquiry”. However last night’s meeting suggests that it is not the right body to lead what will have to be a far reaching review across many agencies and public bodies.

 The Government needs to step in and appoint an experienced Inspector to drive any review.

Clearly the Council does need to review its own performance not least in the important areas of emergency planning, communications and flood recovery. It should get on with appointing a (scrutiny) committee to publicly review its performance and make recommendations for improvement.

The Council may also now reflect that a combination of an inexperienced leadership on the member side together with the use of an interim Chief Executive, has left a vacuum in the decision making and management arrangements.  Add in the absence of the wise counsel that an experienced local MP can offer, and you have the setting for the “perfect storm”.

Permanent, high quality, appointments need to be made quickly now to reinforce the City’s management team.

To regain some credibility, all the Agencies involved must agree to provide authoritative answers to resident’s questions using a dedicated Q and A web site. Any site should be moderated to weed out trolls and point scorers – thereby avoiding some of the distractions of yesterday’s meeting.

Only by establishing an open and honest channel of two way communication can the City hope to move on quickly from its recent troubles.

NB: The Council is resisting a Freedom Of Information request for details of how the York Flood Disaster Fund is being used. It claims that is entirely up to the “Two Ridings Community Foundation”.

That organisation has so far failed to tell those, who have now donated over £483,000 towards the £1 million target for the Flood Disaster Appeal Fund, how the money is being used or to revealed the assessment criteria that it is using.