Flooding

Speech by Cllr John Goddard delivered to Liberal Democrat Conference on Thu 20th Sep 2007

Conference, Oxford - and not only Oxford - needs better flood defences. It needs them now. It needed them last July. Then the low lying parts of the city were seriously flooded: not for the first time in 1000 years, not for the first time in 100 years, but for the third time in eight years.

The Environment Agency has acknowledged for the last 5 years that Oxford's flood defences are inadequate. But no action has been taken. It has talked about "various options, modelling being done, maybe a business case can be prepared in 2 or 3 years", but action we are told is 10 years away. This will not do.

Floods on the scale of July 2007 are no longer "unforeseeable" events. Climate change is happening. More frequent extreme events have to be expected. We have to adapt. We all have to adapt. The Environment Agency has to adapt: adapt its planning and the timescale for its actions to these new circumstances.

Gordon Brown and Hilary Benn have claimed that the flood defence budget will be increased to £800m by 2010. But as we now know this scarcely does more than cover inflation. It is not a worthwhile increase in real terms. It is too little, too late.

The motion calls for an "early" increase in funding. What is needed is an immediate real terms increase and urgent action to bring maintenance up to date and to construct the essential new flood defences.

Conference, support the motion.