Friday brief: ‘Kind words and photo ops’ will not solve flooding challenges, says leader
It's been another busy news week in Northants
The leader of West Northants Council (WNC) has criticised the environment secretary for not being in touch since a high profile visit to the county after the September floods.
This week Northampton and other parts of the county have once again felt the force of the River Nene, and residents at Billing Aquadrome have been evacuated from their homes for the fourth time this year.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed visited the county during the September floods and said many millions set aside for flooding nationally had not been spent, but WNC leader Adam Brown said at last night’s council meeting that he has heard nothing since. He said Northampton South MP Mike Reader had assured him there had been conversations about Northampton with the minister this week, but Cllr Brown says he is frustrated with communication from the Government.
He said:
“I must express my frustration that the secretary of state’s visit to Northampton has not resulted in any further contact from Defra or the requested meeting. Kind words and photo ops will not solve the challenges that have to be met in the face of an increasing number of severe weather events.”
A Labour motion on the flooding called for a new draft flood management strategy to be ready for the next full council meeting and for all section 19 statutory reports to be completed by March. (These are reports into floods that make recommendations).
Deputy Labour leader Bob Purser said:
“I’m concerned that flooding is a strategic issue that we as a council have not given the priority to that it really requires given our location.”
He also said he was concerned the council had ‘hardened its landscapes’ and more advice is needed from the Environment Agency and the agency itself needs to get advice.
He said:
“What we need is an absolutely bang up to date flood risk strategy. We need that strategy in place.”
Yesterday another Northants mobile home site had to be evacuated due to flood waters causing a risk to life.
The 300 residents at Yarwell Mill, which is north of Oundle, were advised to evacuate at 11.45am after rising water levels. Many of the roads close to the site were submerged and Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service (NFRS) launched boats at the park. The service had been at the park since 2.30am on Tuesday and North Northamptonshire Council has set up a rest centre at Oundle library to help people who have been evacuated.
The Local Resilience Forum (LRF) - involving NFRS, North Northamptonshire Council, West Northamptonshire Council and the Environment Agency – say they continue to treat the flooding as a major incident.
Billing Aquadrome site is still inaccessible due to flooding and those displaced from the site should not return until they are advised to do so by the site management company.
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News in brief:
19 days on from her murder, the husband of Harshita Brella is still evading police capture.
Pankaj Lamba, 23, was last captured on CCTV in the Ilford area of East London, where police believe he had left his silver Corsa with the body of his dead wife in the boot.
They say Harshita, who had been in a refuge weeks before her murder, is likely to have been killed in Corby on November 10, the same day she went to Corby boating lake with her husband, who she had married in India this year. Her body was discovered on the Thursday 14.
Northants Police referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) on the days after her murder, due to contact they have had with her.
The IOPC announced this week it will undertake a full investigation.
A spokesperson said:
“We will be examining the police response to Ms Brella’s report of domestic abuse made at the end of August this year. We understand Mr Lamba was arrested by Northamptonshire Police on 3 September and was released with bail conditions and a domestic violence protection notice imposed on him. We will look into further contact Northamptonshire Police had with Ms Brella concerning the case.
“Our investigation will consider the actions and decisions taken by Northamptonshire Police in relation to the report made by Ms Brella and their subsequent investigation.”
However the force continues to refuse to answer questions. It hosted a sham press conference after her death, not allowing questions from journalists and this week has told NN Journal that due to the IOPC investigation and a pending domestic homicide review it will not answer questions about the multi agency risk assessment conference (MARAC) that it says discussed Harshita’s case before her death and put a plan in place.
The IOPC investigation could take many months and the domestic homicide reviews have been known to take years to complete.
A candlelight vigil will take place tonight at 5.30pm at Corby boating lake for Harshita.
The Regulator for Social Housing has returned its judgement on Northamptonshire Partnership Homes (NPH) and found there are serious failings.
West Northamptonshire Council, which owns the social housing provider, referred itself to the regulator in September after it became aware of issues with stock condition surveys and fire risk assessments. At least 2,000 of the 11,500 homes in the stock are now classed as sub standard. The regulator has given NPH a C3 grading, which recognises serious failings. So far only Newham council in London has been given the worst C4 grading.
At last night’s full council meeting leader Adam Brown, who until April was the cabinet member for housing, said the authority was ‘seriously aggrieved’ that NPH had provided data which gave an inaccurate impression of true level of compliance.
He said the council as sole shareholder is considering the makeup of the board to ensure it has the necessary level of skills to ‘robustly challenge’ and ensure support with the new action plan to fix the problems. He said changes would be made in the near future, but the board would retain tenant representation. He said over the years there had been some board members who had done their utmost to provide ‘rigour’ and scrutiny and it would be wrong to tar every board member with the same brush.
A motion put forward by the independent group to debate whether the authority had confidence in the NPH board, was ruled out by the council’s chair Jo Gilford, despite previously getting onto the agenda papers.
Independent leader Ian McCord later took to social media to say the authority did not want a discussion on its failure and had ‘cooked up a wheeze’ to rule out the motion.
A motion by the Liberal Democrat group to discuss NPH was altered to remove an agreement to investigate what had gone on.
Councillor Carl Squires said he had done some research and the company had had 36 directors since it began in 2015, with a significant number serving less than a year.
He said:
“How can you have effective governance in this kind of turmoil?
“Let's get NPH back under our control.”
Cllr Jonathan Harris (Lib Dem) said the mismanagement of housing was another example of ‘institutional failing’ in Northamptonshire.
The council will have to write off £2m from its housing revenue account from money spent by NPH on housing build projects that were never completed. The authority has now taken responsibility for building out of the hands of NPH.
Popular Raunds Community Music Festival might not be able to run next year, say organisers. Due various personal reasons, several members of the current committee are stepping down, leaving a team of only three. They say it is highly unlikely that such a reduced number of people will be able to run the Festival. If anyone is able to help, in whatever capacity, contact the current committee via the Festival website: www.raundsfestival.com
Westminster Watch
The county’s seven MPs will vote today on the assisted dying bill.
The private members bill has been tabled by backbencher Kim Leadbetter MP and is expected to be a very tight vote, with MPs on all sides having a free vote.
So far only the Labour MPs for Corby and Kettering (Lee Barron and Rise Wright) have indicated they will vote for the bill. Conservative MP for South Northamptonshire Sarah Bool has said she will not vote in favour; Northampton South MP Mike Reader has said he will make up his mind after the debate and the other MPs have not made their views known.
There needs to be a cross party, comprehensive review of flood protections, response plans and after care for residents. Both MPs and WNC need to work together to free up those "millions unspent" and bring it to Northants. They can start by lobbying the Minister to reopen the Flood Recovery Grant by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) which has not been activated/triggered following the recent storms of September and November 2024 and not since Oct 23 and Jan 24. That would be a great start whilst they look at more long term solutions. I struggle to believe that's is not possible to reasonably predict the amount of rain that will fall from these storms and plan accordingly. Was it because of a lack of resources and it was a weekend? It's also baffling why Police were knocking doors at 2.30 but the official Flood warning wasn't delivered until 4.01 when clearly the water was already lapping at the doors of properties in St James. People need to put the money where the mouths are and deliver for the people they were elected to represent. I am genuinely pleased that some are taking it seriously but with our delivery of actions, it's all meaningless and like the water, it will flow away and be forgotten....until the next time.
Good reporting but using words like sham without any proof or further detail undermines your hard work. It implies a deliberate attempt to deceive. It would have been just as powerful to say the press conference refused to take questions, despite reporters asking for clarification on …., and leave it at that.