The Environment Agency say they want to establish a permanent exhibition of flood defence works at the former cycle repair workshop in Wellington Row.
They say that the show room would be open “2 or 3” days a week
They have submitted a “change of use” planning application
The showroom would be located only metres away from a key flood defence gate that is closed when the Ouse threatens to overtop its banks
0800 23rd March 2017 Click to update
click to update
York river level guages remain within normal limits despite recent heavy rain.
You can check river levels at the following web site http://www.gaugemap.co.uk/#!Map
Click to access river level guages
Meanwhile the Environment Agency have confirmed details of the flood prevention project exhibitions that they plan for the City.
The exhibitions will take place on Friday and Saturday
Floods cost City £3.3 million
It seems that over 12 months will have elapsed between the Boxing Day 2015 flooding crisis in York and the earliest date that changes to flood response practices in the City could be implemented.
The Council now says that its Executive will not consider the report of an independent floods inquiry until 26th January 2017.
The Inquiry was set up last Spring by the Council with a budget of £50,000. It was expected to deliver an early verdict on the performance of the authorities in dealing with the floods which devastated many parts of the City which lay near the Foss.
The performance of the Council itself on the 26th and 27th December was subject to criticism, with communications and relief work largely in the hands of the emergency services and volunteers on those days. There was no useful advice on the Councils web site at that time although information was updated later.
Nearly 12 months after the floods some businesses are only now reopening.
In the interim the Environment Agency have fitted powerful new pumps at the Foss Barrier while work to protect Leeman Road has been finished. Some local watercourses like the Tang Hall Beck have been cleared of debris by volunteers.
But large areas of the City remain vulnerable if a combination of melting snow and falling rain causes the Ouse to break its banks.
The York Disaster Fund – established to deal with emergencies of this nature – was also ineffective in the first week of the crisis and even now has only distributed around half of the £1.3 million raised by donations.
The Independent Inquiry has been taking evidence from the public over the last couple of months.
It’s membership – a Barrister and two water industry professionals – has been criticised for lacking local authority/emergency planning expertise.
So, what they will conclude is anyone’s guess.
However clearly when flooding does occur – as it will – the City needs to be quicker and more professional in its response
We can only hope that there are no major floods in the city before February at the earliest!
Concerned residents can find more information by clicking these links:
We warned about false economies 4 years ago. click to access
This will come as little surprise to readers of these pages.
We said in 2012, when the then Labour controlled Council decided to end routine gully cleaning, that it was a false economy.
Credit the present Council who have acted to increase the cleaning regime but not quickly enough to prevent flooding in some areas in June.
The Council report reveals that as many as 50% of drains that have been inspected have been found to be blocked. A number of Yorkshire Water maintained drainage and sewer pipes are also blocked.
£125k in capital funding, for “drainage hotspots”, has been made available by the Council.
click to read
A report on events which led to the raising of the Foss barrier on Boxing Day last year – and the subsequent flooding of hundreds of York properties – has been published.
A copy can be downloaded by clicking here
It is clear that the potential flooding of the control room was a major factor in the events of that day.
Water entered the supposed watertight building through a service tunnel which had been allowed to subside. The subsidence had caused waterproof seals to fail.
The report concludes with advice on how to prevent a repetition of the problems
“Access openings between the building and the service tunnel should be sealed so that when water enters the service tunnel it cannot rise and flood the building. The drainage could be configured in a way which eliminates the need to pass through the perimeter of the building below flood level ie by having a small pumping system to pump it up and over the flood risk level. After adopting these remedial steps there will always be a residual risk of water entering the building because it is located below extreme river levels. This residual risk can be eliminated by relocating the water sensitive equipment above the flood risk level”.
The report was commissioned by the Environment Agency itself.
It pointedly failed to ask the consultants, who undertook the inquiry, to assess where responsibility for the maintenance failings rested (although it is pretty obvious).
We must now wait for the findings of the City Council appointed review to hold agencies and individuals to account.
Four months after the devastating flooding which hit the City on 26th and 27th December 2015, details are only now emerging of how the £1.3 million York Disaster (Flood) Fund is being spent.
Click to access
Although most affected residents and businesses have now moved back into their flood hit properties, it appears that only £160,000 has been paid out to victims.
Most of the money – which includes matching funding from the government – has come from charitable trusts with the rest coming from corporate donations, individual gifts and fund raising.
The Fund’s administrators – the Two Ridings Community Foundation – have now published a FAQ summary on their web site.
The posting (right) explains who can apply, for what, and also reveals that making vulnerable buildings watertight (more resilient) could qualify for grant aid (on top of the £5000 already announced by the Council) while damage to vehicles and outbuildings won’t be funded.
Application forms can be downloaded via this link http://www.trcf.org.uk/
Meanwhile the Council has still not revealed details of when its Inquiry into the flooding will start (or even who the members of the Inquiry team will be).
Clearly a report – and most importantly action arising from its conclusions – is still several months away.
A meeting earlier in the week heard that extra investment would include:
“You’r on your own!”
It appears that the Council’s senior Councillors were finally shamed into receiving a report on the recent flooding at their meeting today.
The report (which can be read by clicking here) was delayed to the point where it would be virtually impossible for any resident to know about it before the meeting started.
Much less chance that anyone would have the opportunity to register to speak on the item.
The report seeks only to approve the terms of reference of the promised “Inquiry”.
The Inquiry could take over 6 months to complete so the hope and expectation had been that the Councils own responsibilities – including communications and recovery operations – would by now have been subject to an internal review.
It appears not.
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.
