Parish floods grant boost

4:10pm Tuesday 28th October 2008

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FIVE parishes around Alcester have collectively been granted nearly £15,000 from the Government to help clear up after last summer’s flooding.

Aston Cantlow, Bidford, Coughton, Salford Priors and Wixford parishes have all received grants of up to £3,200 each in response to individual bids for small schemes to help deal with flood water.

Karen Parnell, Wixford Parish Council clerk, said: “We’re very grateful, last year was a big problem. We’ve got the River Arrow and the Haybreak and the money will be used on a strategic approach to clear the culverts.

“It must be said realistically we could still do with a lot more money thrown at it.”

Bidford Council clerk, Elisabeth Uggerløse, was less impressed by the amount Bidford received.

She said: “We requested £12-14,500 and it’s quite a lot less. We can’t complain, we’ve got the maximum, but we had costed for Damfast doors and some Aqua-sacs. This is going to get us 53 doors and we’ve got 44 houses just in Broom. I don’t know whether I’m disappointed or not, I had hoped it would be more. We can count ourselves lucky that we got the maximum amount available to us.”

Stratford District Council was originally given £600,000 by the Government, the majority of which went directly to householders in the district, or to major flood relief schemes.

These latest grants have been set aside from the final £100,000.

Councillor Simon Jackson, the district council’s environment portfolio holder, said: “The district council has been doing all it can to help those towns and parishes affected by flooding in our district and has taken great pains to ensure the money received from the Government has been targeted in areas of most need.

“This grant scheme is a one-off and I hope it goes some way to helping towns and parishes to do what is necessary to help prevent future flooding related problems.”

For more information on flood prevention, visit www.environment-agency.gov.uk.

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