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Warning over flooding as new risk management strategy published
22/01/2025
Householders need to make sure that they are protected from flooding
A new local flood risk management strategy (FRMS) for Oxfordshire has been published. The document was approved by Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet yesterday.
The County Council has the role of the lead local flood authority in the county.
Banbury and the surrounding villages have been affected by flooding on a number of occasions during the last eighteen months.
Councillor Dr Pete Sudbury is the Deputy Leader of Oxfordshire County Council with Responsibility Climate Change, Environment and Future Generations. He said: “We need to try to get ahead of the game when it comes to flooding, otherwise the economic and social losses are likely to spiral to an uncontrollable level.
“We’re moving away from sporadic floods, every few years, to multiple sequential clusters of them. The next ratchet up is continuous flooding over an extended period. We need to pre-empt that, which is why it is so important that strategies like the LFRMS are updated regularly.”
The new strategy, which was put together following a public consultation, covers a five year period but also looks at the longer-term considerations, particularly in relation to climate change. It outlines the roles and responsibilities of those tasked with protecting our area.
But Councillor Sudbury warned the meeting that whatever defences were put in place, ultimately property owners needed to what they could to protect themselves.
He said: “The farmland fills up with water, then the trees and everything else that you put in the way in the swales fill up and then it all ends up in the rivers. So we do need to come back down to having to look at where individual properties need to be protected.
“The law says that it is every householders’ duty – it’s their responsibility – to make sure that they are protected from flooding. We have an enormous job – and the paper says that – to do in helping citizens individually to understand and take responsibility for the threat that flooding is.”
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam