MORE than £6.8million has been invested in flood prevention work in Oxfordshire thanks to Oxfordshire County Council over the last ten years, with more to come according to the Leader of Oxfordshire County Council.
The county council is the Lead Flood Authority for the area and each year contributes in the region of £600,000 towards work that protects properties from flooding.
County Councillor Ian Hudspeth, Leader of Oxfordshire County Council, said: “I am proud of the work that the county council has funded which has helped tackle and prevent the devastation that flooding can cause to our communities.
“Oxfordshire has suffered a number of floods in recent years, with the really big one in 2007 that everyone remembers.
“What people may not realise is that Oxfordshire County Council has been contributing hundreds of thousands of pounds every year to protecting homes that could otherwise face disaster should there be extreme weather in the future.
“The physical work that we have helped to pay for goes a long way to protecting our residents while the county council’s fire and rescue service has a proud history of stepping in to provide hands on help and things like pumping in emergency situations.
“On top of this the county council’s drainage teams work all year round to keep drains and ditches – that can make a big difference – clear. As an example, in West Oxfordshire, we have spent £2.8m on drainage work alone in the last decade.”
Commitment to flood prevention
Cllr Rodney Rose, co-chair of the Oxfordshire Flood Alleviation Scheme Sponsoring Group and member of the Thames Regional Flood and Coastal Committee, said: “The county council’s commitment to reducing flood risk is unquestionable.
“The county council has helped make the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme a reality by agreeing to contribute a further £5m when the scheme goes ahead. This takes our total contribution to £6.5m.
“This is a crucial piece of work for Oxfordshire as we saw only a couple of years ago how flooding in Oxford has wide-reaching impacts for the whole county.
“We have also led on the development of the Oxfordshire Flood Toolkit which provides all the information residents and businesses need to become more resilient.
“All this illustrates the great efforts and strides that we have made towards tackling flooding, and I am keen to see this work continue.”
Next steps
In next year’s program further drainage improvement schemes are planned as well as money set aside for re-active work for drainage problems which arise during the year.
Where the money has gone
Over the last 10 years the money has been spent by the county council on:
- Flood bunds
- Replacement culverts
- Additional culverts
- Upsizing highway drains
- New highway drainage systems
- Flood storage areas
- Ditch maintenance
- Maintenance of the highway drainage system
- Jetting and investigating existing drainage systems
The county council has spent the money in the following district council boundary areas:
- £1,264,000.00 in the West Oxfordshire area
- £1,433,000.00 in the South Oxfordshire area
- £1,066,000.00 in the Vale area
- £205,414.00 in the Cherwell area
- £2,901,650.00 in the Oxford city area
