Councils join forces to ask for extra flood funding

A strong letter, signed by council leaders including Melton Borough Council’s Pip Allnatt, has been sent to Minister for Water and Flooding, Emma Hardy MP.

It highlights how Leicestershire was one of the worst impacted counties in this week’s floods and urges a national flooding shake-up.

There were 630 homes flooded across the county this week, including 55 in Melton borough and 70 in neighbouring Charnwood district.

The damage has proved even worse than the impact of Storm Henk 12 months ago.

The letter states: “This is the second year in a row where hundreds of residents are left homeless and local pubs, sports clubs and others do not know if they will be able to survive.

"Many are cleaning up after just getting on their feet after Storm Henk battered the area just 12 months ago.

"Residents sought shelter and support in emergency rest centres, many with just the clothes they were wearing. It is a torrid situation.

“The right thing is for government to release funding now and activate the Flood Recovery Framework to help them survive and get back to some kind of normality.”

Emergency services, councils, NHS and voluntary agencies worked round the clock to keep people safe and declared a major incident after snow and heavy rain gave way to rapid thawing on Sunday.

Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Services, which declared a major incident, received 380 calls and rescued more than 60 people from properties and 27 from cars by boat.

Leicestershire Police handled over 2,100 calls on Monday - a 40 to 50 per cent rise on average daily demand.

East Midlands Ambulance Service declared a critical incident because of the demand in the region.

The Environment Agency issued a series of flood warnings, including several in and around Melton Mowbray.

Over 160 roads flooded as much of the county was brought to a standstill.

The letter also calls on government to drive national changes, including help for homeowners to make properties more flood resilient, support for businesses to get insurance and a new national communications campaign.

It continues: “Our climate is changing and we need a new approach.

"We are seeing far more frequent events, causing greater impact and affecting areas never historically known to flood.

"National changes to funding and powers are required to help us better prevent and then react to flooding when it does occur.

“Flooding is one of the biggest threats to our communities and needs propelling to the top of the agenda.

"Government needs to step up and lead the conversation on how we collectively up our game in tacking flooding.”

With freezing temperatures expected this week, residents are urged to take extra care as surface water turns to ice.

Gritters are out and about but drivers are advised to take extra care and stick to gritted routes:

Motorists are urged not to drive through flood water as it can be deeper than they think and to obey road closure signs.