MP pleads case to government for completion of Thatcham flood protection scheme

Richard Benyon champions flood forum cause

THE MP for Newbury has called on the government to help protect Thatcham from flooding.

After more than 1,000 homes in the town were flooded in 2007, a plan was drawn up to help prevent a repeat of the devastation.

The plan called for four retention basins to be constructed above and within the town.

One has been constructed at Cold Ash Hill, another at Tull Way is expected to be constructed this year and a third is being put through an Environment Agency approval process.

Addressing members at a Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs question session last week, Richard Benyon reminded MPs of the work being carried out to build flood defences around the town.

“In 2007, the community of Thatcham suffered the surface water flooding of more than 1,100 homes,” he said.

“Since then a huge community effort, working with the Environment Agency and unlocking a lot of local funding as part of the partnership funding scheme, has seen a lot of measures reintroduced.

“The last piece of that work needs preliminary design funding for this year.”

The ‘last piece’, known as the Francis Baily scheme and deemed the most vital, is currently not in the agency’s rolling six-year programme.

Mr Benyon asked whether the government would ‘look closely’ at Thatcham’s case and protect the town for the future.

In response the secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs, Elizabeth Truss, said: “I am sure that we will look very closely at the case that my Hon Friend has made.

“We are enabling local communities to bundle up projects so that we can have more small-scale projects, and we have put through our plans on sustainable urban drainage better to protect housing from flooding.”

The chairman of the the Thatcham Flood Forum, Iain Dunn, said the forum was very pleased that Mr Benyon had raised the matter with the government, adding that it would be nice if he succeeded in securing the funds.

When asked how he thought his pitch for government funding had been recieved, Mr Benyon said that there was a good case to invest in Thatcham in order to prevent people and businesses not suffering from a repeat of the devasting 2007 floods.

Mr Benyon said that he had backed up his request by writing to Defra under secretary of state Rory Stewart MP, to support Thatcham’s scheme.

Thatcham Flood Forum is currently raising funds in order to unlock government funding. To donate visit www.findmeagrant.org/wberks and type WB11089 into the keyword search.

To find out more about Thatcham Flood Forum contact enquiries@thatchamfloodforum.org.uk