Anne McIntosh

Conservative Party | Vale of York

McIntosh reflects on second anniversary of summer floods 2007

11 June 2009

Almost two years on from the flooding that devastated parts of Yorkshire in summer 2007, the Shadow Floods Minister is criticising the lack of response from the Government.

Miss Anne McIntosh, MP for the Vale of York, and Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Thirsk and Malton says although there have been some improvements, not enough has been done.

Miss McIntosh said: "Although we welcome the recently published Draft Floods and Water Bill, which aims to bring in the necessary legislation to implement Sir Michael Pitt's recommendations, we are fast approaching the second anniversary of the 2007 floods and there are still major concerns.

"I have severe reservations over this country's preparedness for and protection from a future flood; highlighting the Government's clear dithering and delay on the issue.

"Over the last two years we have seen a complete lack of action and no sense of urgency from the Government."

"The Yorkshire and Humber region is one of the most at risk areas of flooding in the UK and during the last two years I have visited many of those areas in the North East that were severely affected by the 2007 Floods and subsequent floods, such as Sinnington, Filey, Morpeth, Tolbar and Pickering. I have continued to visit these areas to see the progress on their recovery from the floods and the importance of the flood defences required to protect the homes and properties in theses places form future floods."

"It is true that some of these areas have, in the recent months, had confirmation from the Environment Agency on plans to reduce their flood risk with some of the work even being started such as in Pickering, Sinnington and Morpeth. However there are still many issues that need to be addressed to ensure that a flood on the same scale as we saw on 2007 would not cause the same destruction and devastation."