Colchester MP's warning on floods

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 23rd Jul 2007

If the heavy rain which fell over the weekend in parts of the country had occurred in Colchester then low-lying areas of the town would have suffered the same flooding disaster which has engulfed communities elsewhere.

That was the stark warning today by Colchester MP Bob Russell who again challenged the Government's decision to allow an estate of 120 houses to be built on a meadow off Cowdray Avenue next to the River Colne on the natural floodplain.

Mr Russell - who in the House of Commons has previously described the decision as "stark storing bonkers" - said that global warming and climate change was resulting in thunderstorms and rainfalls of an intensity which the country's drainage system and rivers could not cope with.

He added: "Had we in North Essex experienced the level of rain which has fallen in some places, then many houses along the Colne Valley between Halstead and Wivenhoe would have been flooded.

"To build new houses where flooding is a risk beggars belief, but that is what a Minister in the Department for Local Government and Communities has done, allowing an Appeal by Persimmon Homes to build a new estate off Cowdray Avenue which Colchester Borough Council had refused."

Liberal Democrat Mr Russell had backed the Council and local residents when the Planning Appeal was held last year. He attended the Appeal to speak against, observing that if houses were built then the owners would not have to worry about any future hosepipe ban.