Southend Council is appointing a special team to review drainage at flood hotspots across the borough.
This team will review the flooding locations and key aspects of drainage that fall within the Council’s remit, such as the condition and inspection schedules of drains and gullies in its ownership.
The Council’s emergency planning officer will work as part of the team to look into what can be done to improve flood response at hotspots across the borough.
This will be in addition to any exploratory work being carried out by Anglian Water, who have responsibility for the capacity and maintenance of the public sewer network.
Councillor Martin Terry, Executive Councillor for Public Protection, Waste and Transport, said: “These recent flood events have highlighted a number of areas across the town that are susceptive to surface water flooding.
“The council has recently taken part in productive meetings with Anglian Water and we are both committed to co-operating to find long-term solutions.
“We need to be realistic by stating that we cannot solve flood risk overnight as solutions may well require major capital investments. We need to do a lot more investigation into the causes of the flooding before a robust engineering solution can be worked up with our partners.
“However, in the meantime, our emergency planning officer is looking into what lessons can be learned from the most recent flood events in the borough in terms of our response.
“They will be looking at such things as making resources locally available, overcoming potential delays and better ways of deploying teams to sites at times of flash flooding.
“These are still very early days and I cannot at this stage predict what the conclusions of our investigative works will be but it is clear there is a capacity problem that will need to be resolved. However, it is important that the public of Southend knows that we are taking this matter extremely seriously and treating it as a top priority. ”
A report into last year’s flooding will be going to Cabinet on the 11th November. A report into the most recent flood is currently being produced.
This team will review the flooding locations and key aspects of drainage that fall within the Council’s remit, such as the condition and inspection schedules of drains and gullies in its ownership.
The Council’s emergency planning officer will work as part of the team to look into what can be done to improve flood response at hotspots across the borough.
This will be in addition to any exploratory work being carried out by Anglian Water, who have responsibility for the capacity and maintenance of the public sewer network.
Councillor Martin Terry, Executive Councillor for Public Protection, Waste and Transport, said: “These recent flood events have highlighted a number of areas across the town that are susceptive to surface water flooding.
“The council has recently taken part in productive meetings with Anglian Water and we are both committed to co-operating to find long-term solutions.
“We need to be realistic by stating that we cannot solve flood risk overnight as solutions may well require major capital investments. We need to do a lot more investigation into the causes of the flooding before a robust engineering solution can be worked up with our partners.
“However, in the meantime, our emergency planning officer is looking into what lessons can be learned from the most recent flood events in the borough in terms of our response.
“They will be looking at such things as making resources locally available, overcoming potential delays and better ways of deploying teams to sites at times of flash flooding.
“These are still very early days and I cannot at this stage predict what the conclusions of our investigative works will be but it is clear there is a capacity problem that will need to be resolved. However, it is important that the public of Southend knows that we are taking this matter extremely seriously and treating it as a top priority. ”
A report into last year’s flooding will be going to Cabinet on the 11th November. A report into the most recent flood is currently being produced.
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