Calls made for flood defence scheme (From Gazette & Herald)

Calls made for flood defence scheme

3:05pm Friday 13th July 2007 in

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FORMER Lady Lumley's School student John Healey - now a new Government environment minister - is to be asked to help Pickering get its long-awaited £6.5 million flood defence scheme.

Mr Healey, who fought the Ryedale constituency for Labour in 1992, would have intimate knowledge of the historic market town, said the Conservative leader of Ryedale District Council Coun Keith Knaggs.

"It is an important link with Pickering we should pursue. He said he was asking local MPs John Greenway and Anne McIntosh, now the Shadow Floods Minister, to call for a debate on Pickering's flooding crisis in the House of Commons.

In addition, Coun Howard Keal has successfully moved that the new Environment Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, should be asked to take immediate action to fund the scheme. He said £700,000 had already been spent on drawing up the detailed plans for the project and Ryedale District Council had earmarked £1 million towards the £6.5 million.

"These floods were predicted, preventable and it is shameful that they happened."

He believed that the cost of repairing the damage to businesses and homes in Pickering could be as much as £1 million and he praised the Gazette & Herald for master-minding the campaign for priority to be given to the defence work.

Pickering's scheme was ready to be put into action, said Coun Keal, while those for Hull, Sheffield and Doncaster could be two years away.

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