What really happened
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The information is likely to form a key consideration when the independent inquiry finally gets underway.
The Agency has yet to provide a convincing explanation of why some of its river level gauges failed – even before the telecoms outage occurred.
The York Council has released details of what it claims are the compensation and recovery payments it has made to the victims of the recent flooding.
The Council fails to say how many claims are in the pipeline or explain why some residents – who are apparently entitled to the £500 emergency payment – have still not received any compensation.
The Council has still not moved to clear the confusion about whether one of the most significant events in the City’s recent history will actually be discussed by senior Councillors at their Executive meeting on Thursday. The issue has not so far been added the meeting agenda
The Councils figures,
Financial support paid:
• £137,000 recovery grant paid to 274 residents (with a one-off payment of £500)
• Council Tax exemptions totalling £118,200 for 351 properties directly affected by flooding
• York’s Disaster Fund has paid out £18,900 to all 46 applicants
• Business Rates exemptions totalling £600,000 for 115 businesses directly affected by flooding
• £78,500 resilience grants paid to 38 eligible businesses.
Financial support still available:
For residents:
• York residents whose homes have been internally flooded are entitled to a £500 one-off payment via City of York Council to help support the clean-up process from Government grants.
• Residents whose homes have been flooded internally are entitled to a Council Tax exemption from 27 December 2015-31 March 2016 as a minimum. Extensions may apply where residents cannot return to their property beyond that time.
• Affected York residents on low incomes and who are not adequately insured may be eligible for help from York Disaster Fund, administered by the Two Ridings Community Foundation (TRCF) charity. TRCF launched the York Flood Appeal to increase donations to the fund.
For businesses:
• The new Business Flood Recovery Fund is expected to be in place this week with grants of between £5,000 and £100,000 available. Call 0113 348 1818 or email businessgrowth@the-lep.com to find out more.
• Up to £2,500 is available for businesses affected by the floods through the Flood Recovery Fund for businesses. Email business@makeityork.com or phone 01904 554455to make a claim.
• Businesses which were flooded can apply for an exemption to their Business Rates. Please contact the business rates team at business.rates@york.gov.uk or phone 01904 551140
• Up to £5,000 in Future Flood Prevention Funds is available for commercial property owners/people responsible for maintaining the fabric of a property that has been flooded to help prevent future flood damage. To apply, email business@makeityork.com or call 01904 554455.
For more information, please go to www.york.gov.uk/flood
The Environment Agency has announced a series of drop-in meetings in York for next month to help people learn more about flooding.
Rather than hosting a large, public meeting, the idea is that smaller, “one-on-one” sessions will allow people to ask bespoke questions about how the city manages rising waters.
Experts will be on hand to answer ANY questions, including why the controversial decision was taken to raise the Foss Barrier during the Boxing Day floods.
Details of meetings:
Car park charges look set to be frozen across York to “help local businesses bounce back after the Boxing Day floods”.Leaders of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Executive have announced plans to freeze charges in council-run car parks as part of next month’s 2016/17 Budget.
This means prices will be unchanged for the next 12 months at car parks including Castle, Foss Bank, Marygate, Monk Bar, Piccadilly, and St George’s Field.
Recent trends under Labour – click to enlarge
The freeze will be the first since the Council was led by the LibDems in the period up to 2011.
Car parking charges were held in check by that administration for a record seven years.
When Labour came to power, they introduced large increases. Over their four years in office, some charges nearly doubled.
In the end, the law of diminishing returns meant that the Councils parking income actually fell.
Although the freeze is likely to be generally welcomed, it fails to address immediate concerns.
We suggested a few days ago that the Council should reduce the charges at its Foss Bank “shoppers” car park at least until the end of March.
Unfortunately this idea has not been followed up.
Instead the City of York Council has confirmed that it will contribute £50,000 to a new UK-wide campaign to promote York. Tourism bosses in the city say this will be their biggest ever marketing campaign as work continues to promote York following the floods.
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In the wake of growing concerns about the transparency of the York Floods Disaster Fund allocation processes, the York Council has issued a statement summarising what other financial assistance is available for victims.
The Council statement reads,
“York residents and businesses could receive up to £5,000 to support the resistance and resilience of their property as part of a package of financial support available.
The Government is providing the funding to enable local authorities to provide grants of up to £5,000 to homeowners and businesses that have been flooded as a result of Storm Desmond and Storm Eva to help fund additional flood resilience or resistance measures for their properties
The resilience grant will enable those who have been flooded to better prepare their homes for future flood events, both to prevent flood water from entering the property and to speed the recovery if it does.
In addition to the grant, the council is continuing to provide a raft of financial support citywide to residents and businesses.
To date, the council has helped to provide:
If residents or businesses would like support to talk through these options face-to-face, help is available at the council’s West Offices, Station Rise during offices hours.
Other financial support includes:
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Deservedly so as, despite a promising start when the Councils version of the timeline for the critical events of 26th and 27th 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.
Appeal now seeking £1,000,000
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.
The number of properties flooded during the recent floods, which did not have insurance cover, has yet to be revealed by the authorities.
The number should be clear from the volume of applications for assistance made to the York Disaster Fund.
Grants are not normally made to those with appropriate insurance cover.
The level of grants made to date has also not been revealed by either the Council or the Two Riding Community Trust, who now run the fund.
The Flood Appeal meanwhile seems to have stalled just short of its original target of £250,000. By 10th January £244,000 had been raised. However, the proceeds from several fund raising events, including a Barbican concert as well as the governments matched funding, have yet to be added to the total.
The number of uninsured properties is a matter of considerable interest as a new government underwritten guarantee scheme is due to come into effect in April.
The company coordinating the new cover – “Flood Re” – will provide “affordable” insurance cover for homes in high risk locations. It was first suggested in 2011 but setting up delays – it was to have launched last summer – have piled pressure on its Chairman, former Tory MP Mark Hoban who apparently pockets a 6 figure sum for the part time role.
Flood Re is a collaboration between the insurance industry and the Government and will cap the insurance of home owners in flood-prone areas to £210 a year for Council Tax “Band A” homes to £540 a year for “Band G” homes. The scheme will cover 500,000 properties at risk of flooding, including top-end houses in council tax “Band H”.
The subsidy will be funded by a levy of “around” £10.50 on all household premiums across the country.
In the past, the scheme has been deemed “unworkable” and “needlessly expensive” by policy experts, because while it will include riverside mansions, it will exclude thousands of other, more modest properties, such as leasehold flats and homes that are let.
Shops and other businesses will not be covered by the scheme.
Properties built since 2009 will also remain exempt in order to discourage the development of properties on flood plains.
Meanwhile York’s MP has been holding a series of meetings with affected local flood victims. She is right to do so, although the formal inquiry set up by the Council is likely to look at how engaged and effective the Ward Councillors for the flooded Guildhall, Heworth and Clifton Wards – together with the MP herself – were on the ill-fated evening of the 26th December.
Residents will expect a professional report, on the outcome of her meetings, to be written and that it will be submitted to the official inquiry.
In the meantime It would be a mistake for any elected representative to indulge in public criticism of any agency or the work of volunteers until all the facts are known.
“Sound bite” interviews are not helpful.
Rapid response type vehicle
The MP rightly praised the work of the Fire Brigade in York in a tweet on 27th December. Later questions emerged about the failure to utilise the local rescue craft available for the brigade while importing rescue boats from hundreds of miles away.
Now questions are being asked about how appropriate the design is of the new “rapid response vehicles” which the Fire & Rescue Authority wants a substitute for more conventional Fire tenders. Any reduction in the capability of rescue vehicles able to operate on flooded roads would be a concern.
Calls for an independent review into the causes of, and response to, the recent flooding in parts of the City have apparently now led the York Council to agree to mount an Inquiry.
Press reports suggest that it will take a similar format to that of a Select Committee.
What will be critical will be the terms of reference of the Inquiry and the clarity of any written evidence published before witnesses are called.
In our view the Council should encourage written questions and representations using “open dialogue” socal media channels to allow all those with concerns to contribute.
The move comes at a time when the Environment Agency has confirmed that water entering the control cabin (which was supposedly watertight) on 26th December led to the decision to raise the Foss barrier.
It is likely that any Inquiry will want to scrutinise carefully the actions of not only the York Council, but also the Emergency Services, local MPs, the Environment Agency, power and telecoms companies, and the Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC)
Inquiry members will no doubt also familarise themselves with the many reports that have been published on the flooding threat in the City over the last few years.
These include:
Council reminds flood-hit homeowners to employ reputable trades peopleThere are some tell-tale signs which can help spot the difference between a ‘cowboy’ trades person and the genuine thing.
Be very careful about taking on someone who:
It is unclear whether a report, on the circumstances surrounding the Food Barrier failure, will be published by the Environment Agency before the meeting.
With so many unanswered questions remaining about timeline, communication channels and decision taking processes, it is unlikely that, any meeting would satisfy the concerns of those attending.
Similarly milestones should be published for the £13 million upgrade to the Foss barrier which has now been promised.
East York would continue to be vulnerable to further flooding during the likely 2 year construction phase for any upgrade.
The Council says, “The city’s response to the floods, the recovery and clean-up operation and the way forward will be discussed, with a focus on the practical support offered across the city.
People will be able to talk directly to representatives from those organisations at the heart of the operation, including the Environment Agency, North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, British Telecom, North Yorkshire Police and the council itself.
Further opportunities will be available to residents to give feedback at ward meetings and in flood-affected areas. These will be attended by partner organisations. The dates and locations of the local meetings will be publicised very shortly and where people are unable to attend, other ways of sharing feedback will be put in place”.
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Appeal now seeking £500,000
The York Flood Appeal has doubled the target amount that it hopes to raise. The Appeal Committee hasn’t yet made it clear whether this total includes the promised matched funding from central government.
Click here to donate
Meanwhile the Council is being urged to coordinate the use of surplus materials and clothes, donated by residents to help flood victims, but which was subsequently not required.
While some may be donated to other charities, the value of any items sold should be donated to the official appeal fund.
Meanwhile there have been calls for an inquiry into the flooding. Concerns continue to be raised about the timing and justification for the decision to raise the Foss Barrier and the subsequent effect that this had on east York.
Confused messages about York Disaster Fund on Council web site.
