Memorandum submitted by Patricia Lee (FL
133)
I understand that your committee examining the
floods of this summer meets today. Can I draw your attention to
the plight of Ripon which was flooded for a second time in recent
years (the first occurring in November 2000)? Levels were as high
as 2000 on 15 June and the same people who had to leave their
homes then were similarly affected and most are still in temporary
accommodation.
After the floods in 2000 the Environment Agency
came up with a comprehensive defence scheme (in itself an expensive
exercise I imaging) which would involve building a dam across
farmland to hold any sudden rise in spate water. The scheme has
been accepted by all the authorities but there is no funding.
It could go ahead now but there seems to be no will. Are you in
a position to give us any help here?
We feel that because we had our flood a month
before the rest of the country that our concerns will have been
lost beneath those problems. If you need chapter and verse on
this our MP David Curry will have all the detail.
On a general point I should say that the Environment
Agency seems to have done little if any work on the Rivers Skell
and Laver which caused the problems. Trees lie in the river bed
and huge banks of cobble and sand mean that the water has nowhere
to run. At least some dredging was done in 2000. The old river
boards were familiar with their catchment areas and much more
on top of the job.
Patricia Lee
October 2007
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