Appeal for help to protect Thatcham from flooding

The appeal comes as Thatcham Flood Forum has announced its five year action plan.
In 2007, more than 1,100 homes in the area were affected by flash-flooding following storms.
The new plan will look specifically at three aims and goals – “To maximise peparedness for a major flood event, to enforce awareness of the continuing risk and communicate progress on the implementation of preventative measures and to lead on action readiness working with a range of community partners.”
The five year plan includes lobbying developers to make sure they include 'flood resilience measures' in developments, working with West Berkshire Council, the Environment Agency and other partners to maximise national capital funding for physical works, ensuring all historic flood event data is captured and building a plan to attract partnership funding contributions from national and local business, community fundraising, local councils and other bodies.
Chairman of the flood forum, Ian Dunn said: “The main thrust is to give us a programme to work to for the next five years.
“We didn’t have much direction beforehand.
“The main thrust has to be that we need to get people on board to handle the different aspects of it.
“The big thing is to get the Surface Water Management Plan (SWMP) put into practice.
“West Berkshire Council is applying for the first attenuation pond and we have another six of these to do eventually. That’s one thing we need to take forward.”
He added: “The other we need to do is to identify houses that are not going to be covered by the attenuation ponds.
“We need to get the funding to get their own protection measures.
“We also need to get people more aware of the need to keep the drains clear and to flag up those that aren’t clear.
“We have a SWMP, we would be rather foolish not to us it.”
The next meeting of the flood forum takes place on Wednesday, November 27 at 7pm at Thatcham Town Council offices in Brownsfield Road.
Mr Dunn urged all those interested to go along.
For more information visit http://thatchamfloodforum.org.uk/