At the weekend John Redwood went around his constituency of Wokingham to assess the impact of the recent flooding, which has left houses without electricity, several families in need of re-housing for the next few months, and resulted in the closure of Emmbrook School. Several Councillors have also visited people affected by the floods in their own wards and sent reports to John.

Having witnessed the damage, John Redwood yesterday asked the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to look at why several recent housing developments in his constituency had experienced flooding. In approving these developments, Mr Redwood said, the government and the Environment Agency had failed to insist on the adequate provision of drains and ditches to protect these new home owners, and he asked the Secretary of State to investigate this failure. [See item 1, from Hansard, below].

Mr Redwood will also continue to press the government on why, despite early warnings from the Met Office about the likelihood of a wet summer, in addition to concerns raised by him and others over the past few years about the risks of flooding, neither they nor the Environment Agency appeared at all prepared for what happened. People need to know exactly what the government is going to do in the future to stop this happening again.

From his tour of Wokingham and West Berkshire it was clear that the worst affected areas were entirely predictable low lying roads and homes on land near rivers. The government and its Environment Agency should do more to divert water and put in place suitable barriers near homes and important public infrastructure.

John Redwood has been concerned about flood defence for some time, and has continually warned Ministers about the likely consequences of inadequate maintenance and lack of capacity. On two occasions earlier this month he highlighted the Agency’s unsatisfactory record in maintaining flood defences. [See items 2 and 3 below].

Over the previous few years John Redwood has asked successive ministerial teams to give urgent attention to the need to replace or strengthen the Thames barrier in the immediate future, and to look at the efficacy of coastal defences in general. [See items 4-10 below].

Item 1 [Hansard, 23rd July 2007]:

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Will the Secretary of State look at why several recent developments of homes in my constituency have been flooded, and will he ask why the Environment Agency did not insist on more adequate drainage and ditches when the developments were being put in place, to protect new owners from that terrible shock?

Hilary Benn: As the right hon. Gentleman will have heard in answer to an earlier question, we have now given the Environment Agency a much stronger position in the process by requiring it to be statutorily consulted when new planning applications come in. We have tightened the planning guidance

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