'We’ve been led up a garden path' - Parish council angry at lack of brook work
“We’ve been led up a garden path.”
That is what a councillor has said after work to fix a brook in a Shropshire village will not happen any time soon.
Lydbury North was severely flooded a year ago, with water going into houses and the primary school. It was believed to have been caused by a “clogged-up” brook that runs through the village, with it having no run-off.
John Bellis, drainage and flood risk manager at Shropshire Council, reportedly met with the parish council and agreed that work needed to be done. The parish council said it was willing to pay half of the work.
However, a year after the floods hit, no work has been carried out. And because the spawning season for fish has now started, villagers will have to wait until at least next May until the issue is sorted.
“Finally, we managed to get John to come back again about three or four weeks ago and he agreed [that worked needed to be done] again,” said Paul Mulligan, clerk at Lydbury North Parish Council.
“We also got the engineer company to give us a quote for the work, which was £15,000. The engineer was willing to comply with the environmental issues and the structure of the bank, and gave us a very fair quote.
“Sporadically over the past few weeks, he [Mr Bellis] indicated it had to go to the spending board. The critical thing is we wanted the work done at the beginning of October because it was this time last year that the village got flooded, and the Environment Agency are saying it’s a spawning area with fish.
“After a certain time in October, which is now, no work can be done on the brook. We did have a local contractor who said he’d do it in the summer, but we had so many objections from the county council about various policies, like ‘what are you going to do if you’re in the water and it rains?'”
Mr Mulligan read out an email he had received from Mr Bellis saying “it was out of his hands” and the decision lay with the spending board. He told Mr Mulligan that, given that the board is not approving anything except for essential spend and we’re now well into the fishing season, he was not confident the work would be be possible.
Councillor David Murray said: “If the flooding of houses and the school is not classed as essential, then what on earth is? We’ve been led up a garden path.
“There have been comments from people asking what the parish council is doing about it. Because of where we are, I think we’re in a position of thinking about having a public meeting of the residents so we can at least then put our case forward. Five or six parishes around here have the same problem. They’re just using excuses.”
Councillor Andrew Coull said he couldn’t see the council getting anywhere this year, but he could speak with neighbouring parishes to see if they could join forces so the coucil “has more clout.”
Members agreed that representatives would meet Stuart Anderson, the MP for South Shropshire, at his event in Cleobury North this Friday (October 24.)
A Shropshire Council spokesperson said: “Shropshire Council have been working with Lydbury Parish Council on a joint project to remove sediment from the watercourse running though the village which has been affected by flooding on a number of occasions.
“Responsibility for maintaining the watercourse lies with the individual property owners who bound the channel along its length, with the council responsible for the culvert under the B4385.
“Whilst Shropshire Council has cleansed the culvert in the past, this work has proved ineffective as the culvert quickly re-fills with sediment and the issue now requires a coordinated approach with local landowners to be successful.
“The parish council contacted Shropshire Council in the spring to explore collaboration and offered to part fund the clearance works. This approach was very much welcomed, and Shropshire Council was keen to assist to help limit the impact of flooding in the village.
“Regrettably, due to problems with the identification of a suitably qualified local contractor and regulatory and financial requirements it has not been possible to progress the work sufficiently quickly to avoid fish spawning restrictions which are now in force (1 October to 31 May). However, we are keen to re-visit the proposal with the parish council in the spring when fish spawning restrictions are lifted.”
