Added 17/4/2009
Tuesday 14th April 2009
ABINGDON residents reacted angrily to news that no more work will be done to protect their homes from floods.
Despite carrying out a £110,000 feasibility study into different schemes to reduce the risk of future floods, the Environment Agency (EA) said it would not carry out the suggestions.
A £50,000 project to demolish St Helen’s Mill Bridge finished this month, which it is hoped will prevent the River Ock from bursting its banks.
But suggestions for £3m worth of other works in its report will be ignored.
In July 2007, 661 homes in Abingdon were flooded and residents said they wanted more done to prevent a repeat of the disaster.
Ian Field, 54, of Mill Road, said: “There is obviously an existing flood risk and our concern is that the Environment Agency is not taking the risk seriously enough. We would like money to be spent to reduce flooding. It is certainly a considerable concern.”
Ernest Wright, 80, of Galley Field, said: “I think it’s disgusting. Of course it’s going to happen again, unfortunately. I feel very distressed and sorry for the people that are affected by the floods.”
An EA spokesman said: “The feasibility studies are very expensive anyway and are really just to help us understand the floods in detail.
“It also showed us that the flood event was extreme and very rare, and the risk of that happening again was lower than we originally believed.”
According to the EA’s records, Abingdon has been affected by floods four times in the past ten years. The feasibility report was carried out last October to determine whether proposals to build walls and embankments along the River Ock, or to create flood storage areas upstream, would work.
The preferred options for Abingdon would cost between £3m and £3.5m.
Town councillor Sam Bowring, whose home in Turberville Close was flooded in 2007, has set up flood action groups in the town to press for improvements.
She said: “There is a lot more that can be done. It’s just so disgusting how the Environment Agency does its funding costs.
“There is unlikely to be another flood that affects that number of houses again, but there could be another, say, 100 houses that could go under water.”
