Posts from — June 2007

I’ve been doing this for sufficiently long now that, on the whole, things don’t really upset me and even the frustration that things take so long to do sometimes, I can just about deal with.

You’ll know by now that I’m endlessly going on about the small parts of Fazeley and Mile Oak where anti social behaviour is a real nuisance to local people. I think we are making some progress…. the public drinking restrictions will come into force shortly, the new police outpost in Mill Lane will be fully functional very soon and the public services in the area are firmly focused on dealing with bad behaviour and vandalism. That said, I do still have a real issue with the County Youth Service over their abject failure to provide much needed youth work in the area. It’s ‘toys out the cot’ time on that issue…. watch this space!

In recent weeks the debate on alleyways or ‘cut throughs’ staying open or closing has also brought in some pretty direct and robust views from locals on both sides of that debate. I hadn’t realised that the focus of that debate, the alleyway from Deer Park Road to Manor Road which has been closed for months while some houses were built there, was re-opened again a couple of weeks ago. Actually I’m annoyed I wasn’t told in advance, but I wasn’t.

Anyway, the opening of that alleyway has resulted in a return to the anti social behaviour problems that stopped whilst it was closed and so I visited the area this morning to talk to local people. What I learned was that the lives of some residents is being made unbearable by groups of young people hanging around into the early hours, getting drunk, damaging public and private property, generally being a nuisance and even evidence of some intimidation by them. The beer cans and cigarettes had been left from the early hours of Friday night as had a broken window from someone throwing a stone.

Listening to the despair of law abiding locals, some of whom have been there no time at all and others who have been resident in the area for 50 years is genuinely upsetting to me. And they are so reasonable about it too! Despite the fact they are having a miserable time again now they can totally appreciate the wishes of many people to keep the alleyways open. It was even more upsetting that they were so reasonable about it all. Someone I met burst into tears when I started asking them how things were.

So, early next week I’m going to refocus my attention on this problem. My meetings this morning have come up with some possible new solutions which wouldn’t necessarily need to close the alleyways. I need to investigate those ideas further and above all really do what is needed as quickly as possible. One way or another this will be sorted out, I promise.

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A really short post to say how delighted I am that the restoration project for the wonderful ‘walled gardens‘ at Elford is almost ready to go.

Eighteen months ago I helped the project group move their idea forwards by persuading Birmingham City Council, who own the estate in Elford, to come to the negotiating table. It’s been a slow process but the group have stuck at it and, as of last week, they became a formal project with Birmingham now preparing the long awaited lease.

Well done to Dick, David and the group for staying the course. Really hard work starts shortly!

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The last few days have been traumatic for a lot of people living around Lichfield and Tamworth who have seen the power of nature first hand in the form of mass flooding.

Fazeley and Elford were the worst hit areas and whilst there are lessons to be learned and questions to be answered about how the flooding happened in the first place as well as aspects of how it was dealt with I am hugely impressed how the 24/7 cleanup operation has been delivered by the Authorities, local councillors and, of course, local people. There has clearly been a massive operation to try and visit and give advice to as many people as possible who have been affected.

I’m currently talking to those affected about there experiences and how they are trying to get back to normal. The farming community has been hit badly. The sheer scale of the flooding means that, very sadly, livestock has perished. That means that farmers’ livelihoods are at risk and also means a considerable amount of work for the animal welfare and public health Agencies. I am hopeful that insurance will help on the business side of things for farmers but the emotional effect that losing their animals has had is truly moving.

The training which those responsible for dealing with emergencies undertake can never completely accurately imitate what the real situation is like when it happens. I will be seeking answers to important questions about things from flood warnings and flood defences to operational issues but one thing I am entirely confident about is that, difficult as it was for so many people, going through an experience like the last few days will have provided first hand learning which will be invaluable to how serious incidents would be handled in the future.

Thank you to everyone involved and remember there is a massive operation in place to help with most aspects of what has happened if you have been affected. It goes without saying that if you have issues or problems you think I can assist with or should know about please call me or use the Contact facility.

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Fazeley and Elford in my County patch ended up feet deep (literally) in flood water during the early hours of Saturday morning (yesterday) but the response from the Authorities was poor, at least in the early stages of the crisis.

Got a call from Lichfield District Council at just before 8.45am on the Saturday morning telling me there were some flood problems. As it turned out that was ’splendid’ understatement!

I decided to have a look how things were going and make sure people knew I was around if needed so I grabbed a pair of waders, spade, bucket and set off.

Fazeley was a mess when I arrived at about 9.15am. I was shocked at what I saw and the more I walked around the more shocking it was. Certainly needed the waders! The main road flooding was the first thing I saw but much worse than that, ground floor flats, houses by the centre and two roads by the Bourne Brook were literally knee deep all over and waist deep in parts.

And that’s when I started to become concerned. Residents and local councillors were telling me that very little appeared to be happening. Ok, the roads were closed off with probably half a dozen police around and I guess there were also a dozen fire officers. I’d also already seen a couple of guys from Lichfield District Council at the community centre which was open for displaced locals to get warm, dry, fed and watered. That was all fine but the water, I was told, had started flooding seriously about 5 hours before.

People were desperate for sand bags and the fact that all they could do was watch as water flooded into more and more houses was causing real, and understandable, tension and distress which was beginning to show in a number of ways. The word was also that fire officers wanted to start pumping water out but had been told by ‘bosses’ they couldn’t. That fact was causing real frustration with residents! I tried to find out who was in charge at the scene but the police couldn’t tell me and the fire officers I asked told me they didn’t know where their boss was.

Eventually I managed to find him but was told he wasn’t able to give me a briefing. Fair enough as he was obviously running around talking into his radio…. although it wasn’t totally clear to me what was being achieved. I did keep him long enough to ask why there were no sandbags and was told there weren’t any available but they were trying to find some. To my suggestion that the army at Whittington may be a place to try I was told politely(ish) that the army would be told if they were needed. By this time residents had started phoning round builders’ merchants to try and get sand delivered and over the next twenty minutes I phoned numerous contacts at Highways, Environment Agency, County…. but to no avail. No luck until my last call where I was assured that 2000 sand bags should shortly be on their way from the Highways Agency only to be told a few minutes later that now they weren’t available after all.

The senior fire officer wasn’t around, there was no ranking police officer and nobody knew who was now in charge on the ground! I’d been there an hour by this time and, in the main, little was improving and nothing was being done for the people and property in the Brook End area.

So I decided to use my contacts to get the army involved and also try and establish if more could be done via the off site command centre. The Commanding Officer of ATR (Lichfield) was on his way down South when I got him on his mobile. After establishing that no formal request for help had been received from the Authorities so far his instant reaction to me was “Matthew, whatever I’ve got available you can have, no problem”. Within 40 minutes a Captain was on site discussing what was needed and what was available with a promise of two 4 tonne high clearance trucks and 40 soldiers.

Also had a call back from Highways to say they’d now got a few hundred sandbags but no way of transporting them. At least things were possibly now coming together (a bit at least). Even the lorry from the builders’ merchants had now turned up from Tamworth with 4 tonnes of loose sand and 250 bags to fill. And within another ten minutes the first truck with twenty five soldiers turned up with some finished sandbags. The guys were great, offloading the completed bags and then cracking on with filling the builders’ merchants bags from the 4 tonnes of loose sand. Fifty minutes later almost all the homes in the Brook End area had at last got sand bags against the front and back doors.

The difference in the mood of local people was palpable once things started to happen. It went from very tense to a spirit of cooperation and ‘get the job done’. Next major step forward was a new Chief Fire Officer appearing at the scene to take formal control. He, too, was a breath of fresh air and got hold of the situation quickly and efficiently. Upgrades had also been made to the off site command centre too.

But this was 8 hours after the flooding started in Fazeley! At least progress was being made, although to add to the tension again, the Heavens had now opened big time! It didn’t last too long thank goodness.

I’d heard that Elford was now completely cut off with floodwater rising. Again the Army, under the command of a newly arrived Major, came into their own and were dispatched by the new fire commander to get through the floodwaters to the village. I was hopeful of getting up there myself at some stage to see how locals were coping. By all accounts, although the situation was bad, the work on the ground up there had been excellent.

I stayed in Fazeley until 4.30ish and attended the regular ‘Silver’ command meetings so that I had a clearer idea of how things were going. What I saw until I left was very dedicated people struggling to get the answers they desperately needed from others and trying to cope with incorrect information and lengthy silences where no information came through. More about the questions and explanations I will be seeking as to why this happened and how it did later in this post.

I set off for Elford and found the information that the village was pretty well cut off was entirely accurate. What I saw on the way was staggering…. it was like an ocean in every direction around Hopwas on the way to Elford and I got there finally despite water being so deep in places it washed over the bonnet of the 4×4.

I got there at about 5pm and after negotiating my way through the various police/fire service cordons was in for another shock at what I saw. The picture at the top of this post shows The Beck, one of the main residential roads in Elford, with floodwater well over a metre deep in places whilst on the left the river is as far as the eye can see.

Despite the appalling conditions and some difficult evacuations of elderly people the rescue teams and villagers were all pretty cheerful and taking the situation in their stride. I talked to a lot of locals and on the whole they were very positive about efforts by the Authorities although were highly critical of the fact that, despite the flood situation being seen as inevitable for many years, little had been done in the way of mitigation.

I left Elford at about 6.30pm just in time to see the latest efforts of the trainee recruits from ATR (Lichfield). They really were worth their weight in gold!!

I mentioned earlier that the Emergency Planning Authorities need to learn some serious lessons. In Fazeley it took far too long for things to kick in properly and I’ve got no idea why there can’t be ready stores of sandbags in any area that has a likelihood of flooding.

I’ve got a list of fifteen key questions I need answers to. With global warming likely to mean more flooding in the future it is essential that flood defences are improved and in the event of defences failing responses by the Authorities have to be much better than they were in Fazeley. When I have those answers to my questions I’ll post again accordingly. In the meantime, good luck to everyone who has suffered damage and inconvenience because of flooding and let’s hope the weather is dry at least until water levels have receded.

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Do the alleyways add to anti social behaviour problems?……………….. Should any or all of them be closed? ……………………………………… … Or do you think they are useful and should stay open?…………………Which road do you live in? …………………………………………………Anything else to say?

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