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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what (a) flood warning and (b) post-flood management systems are in place in the Wiltshire section of the Hampshire Avon catchment; and if she will make a statement. [196021] Mr. Morley: The Government are committed to ensuring a seamless, integrated and continuous service of flood forecasting, warning and response delivered by the Environment Agency. Defra has recently approved the Agency's new £226 million flood warning strategy. For Wiltshire, the Agency's regional flood forecasting and monitoring team in Exeter works with the Meteorological Office to provide the Flood Warning team at Blandford with information on weather conditions. The Blandford team considers this against the condition of the catchment and monitored river levels. When river trigger levels are exceeded, warnings are sent from Agency area office to the media, civil authorities, emergency services and those at risk of flooding who have chosen to be on the Agency's Automated Voice Messaging (AVM) system. The Agency has also written to those identified from flood maps as being at risk of flooding. Both the maps and those on the AVM are reviewed regularly taking account of any new information. Due to the characteristics of the chalk geology in the Salisbury catchment, groundwater can be a source of flooding and the Agency aims to provide an accessible, self-help groundwater flood warning service to all of the affected local parishes. The Agency has a comprehensive post-flood management system which reviews their response to events, the impact and sources of flooding. The Agency addresses issues within its responsibility and provides review information to all responsible organisations as a starting point for future work. Solutions, such as improvements to flood warning, enforcement, development control, maintenance of main rivers, improvement works and possible new defences, are prioritised within the Agency's work programmes.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

196021; 426 c1013-4W;426 c1017-8W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Flood control Floods Warnings Wiltshire

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk