Northampton Building on Flood Plains

by liamssoft | July 31, 2007 at 02:45 am

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Building on areas of Flood plains without major flood defences installed will inevitably lead to more flooding for Northamptonshire England.

Ecton Village, Billing, Darllington and Wootton do not have the same levels of protection as the rest of the town.

The letter from Environment Agency chief executive, Barbara Young , makes it clear parts of north and east Northampton do not have the same levels of protection as Far Cotton (Far Cotton Floods1939) (Far Cotton Floods1998) and St James, Nene Valley Northampton, which had their flood defences strengthened after the devastating floods of Easter 1998 .

The West Northamptonshire Development Corporation (WNDC who are you?), was set up by the Government to make Northamptonshire a better place to live and work and to build 47,500 houses in Northampton by 2031. Building this amount of housing on or near existing flood plains without adequate flood defences is Wrong.

Following the discovery of documents raising questions about flood defences in some parts of the town, Northampton South's Conservative MP, Brian Binley, has written to environment minister Hilary Benn, warning him to stop the town's expansion programme.

Traffic and congestion, flooding and the loss of green space are the main concerns.

Wrong to build on heath, says council

The leaders of Northampton Borough Council have indicated they are willing to fight plans to build 3,500 houses on a beauty spot all the way.

The Environment Agency has not met its target to maintain 63 per cent of Englands flood
defence systems in their target condition.UK NAO press notice

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