Agenda item

Items brought forward which in the opinion of the Chair should be considered by the meeting as a matter of urgency.

Minutes:

(a)  Former Councillors David Spear and Frank Purcell

The Chair asked those present for a minutes silence to reflect on former Councillors, David Spear and Frank Purcell, who had sadly passed away recently.

 

(b)  Flooding in Barnstaple 17th August 2020

The Chair welcomed Alex Miles to the meeting, Emergency Planning Officer, North Devon Council, for an overview and update on the flooding incident which happened in Barnstaple on 17th August 2020.

 

The Emergency Planning Officer gave the Committee the following overview and update:

·         On 17th August 2020 Barnstaple experienced an unprecedented amount of rainfall over a short period of time.  This amount of water overwhelmed the local drainage system.  The surface water was unable to drain away which subsequently led to the flash floods across Barnstaple town centre and surrounding areas.  

·         The event was totally unexpected and had not allowed enough time for North Devon Council to trigger its emergency plan strategy.  No weather warning had been issued by the Met office and the flood risk was considered to be low.

·         The first multi-agency meeting was called at 18:30 hours at which point the flooding was declared a critical incident by the Police.

·         Multi-agency meetings continued throughout the evening and were stood down at 21:00 hours.

·         Despite the CCTV offices having been flooded the standby team were still able to provide support

·         The Housing team were put on alert early on in the evening to assist, if required, with the provision of temporary accommodation.  To date four households had been placed in temporary accommodation due to damage to their properties as a result of the flooding.

·         As the Local Authority leading on the situation a Recovery Coordination Group (RCG) was set up to act as a strategic decision making body to assist with the recovery phase.  The purpose of the RCG was to ensure the interests of each stakeholder was represented and the aim was to build public confidence in actions taken through strong leadership.

·         Other members of the RCG included Barnstaple Town Council, One Northern Devon, ward Members for the affected areas and North Devon Homes.

·         The flood risk management team at Devon County Council would be carrying out a section 19 report under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which would identify any short or long term actions needed and would be presented to the relevant bodies for consideration.

·         The Works and Recycling teams had made extra collections of water damaged goods collecting on Saturdays to help support the local community.

·         Updates and links to support and help were on the Council’s website and posted on social media channels.

·         Volunteers had spent evenings and weekends dropping leaflets through the letterboxes of properties in the affected areas urging them to report damage suffered, those reports were to be made online using the website Fort.

·         The Council had linked up with Devon Communities Together who would be providing local community support by drafting an emergency plan through workshops and forums available on their website.

·         Once the draft plan had been completed the community would then be eligible to apply for funding to purchase items such as walkie-talkies, high-vis clothing or sandbags.  Or the money could be used for a one off small scale work such as gully clearance, if the land owner could not be identified.

·         Other community engagement opportunities were being explored in partnership with the Environment Agency to help local communities understand flood risks in their area and support them in identifying ways in which they could reduce those risks.

·         It was recommended to signpost members of the community, affected by the flooding, to the Devon County Council website where there was a link to the Flood Online Reporting Tool (FORT).  This link could also be found on the Council’s website.

 

 

The Emergency Planning Officer confirmed the Section 19 report would be made available to Members for their consideration.

 

The Chair invited Councillor Biederman to address the Committee.  Councillor Biederman expressed his concern that it took the emergency services too long to declare a critical incident.  He asked if the roads to the affected areas should not have been closed as the movement of traffic caused waves of water to enter nearby buildings and making the situation worse.  The Emergency Planning Officer replied that this idea would be fed back to the Devon County Highways team.

 

Councillor Leaver addressed the Committee to request that in an event such as this could the Ward members of affected areas be made aware of the incident. 

 

The Chair remarked at the speed of the clean up as he had visited the town the next day.  He went on to encourage Devon County Council to revisit their cleaning schedule as some drains had not been cleared for three years.

 

Councillor Leaver requested that parking arrangements be made easier for contractors who were now working on the affected properties but having difficulties obtaining parking permits for the residential streets they were working in, as each individual van had to have its own permit and this was time consuming and frustrating when the contractors were visiting more than one property.  The Emergency Planning Officer responded that this would be taken back to Devon County Council as a lesson learnt.  There would be a debrief and evaluation session which would help with future responses.  The Head of Environmental Health and Housing was in discussion with Devon County Council on the matter of any available funding for those householders who did not have insurance.