Flood Breakthrough!

2.15.44pm GMT Wed 4th Apr 2007

Malcolm Cowan has hopefully made Herts Highways tackle areas of persistent flooding

Malcolm Cowan, Liberal Democrat county councillor for Handside and Peartree has made a major breakthrough in how flooding issues will be dealt with by the county council.

Up till now, if a flooding issue was reported, and the flooding had gone by the time the site was visited by Herts Highways, no action took place and the area would be flooded again and again.

Malcolm says: 'This area has many flooding problems. I tried to report them so that they could be dealt with. I was bemused by the fact that nearly every time I reported flooding, the incident was shown on records as "not found, closed". I knew I had reported the sites accurately.

'I made enquiries and was told that the people sent out were only to handle immediate problems. If the problem had disappeared, for instance by hundreds of cars splashing the water onto the footpaths, then it was closed and nothing happened. This was totally unsatisfactory.

'I raised the issue at a recent meeting of the county council asking for a better approach, and was pleased to be informed that in future, such incidents will be logged and kept for subsequent investigation. I will now resend the incidents and new ones, and hope to see that they are dealt with properly, so that we are less bedevilled by flooding than we have been.

'Residents can report any road issue themselves, using the link www.hertsdirect.org/actweb/faultreporting/category1.cfm and I would encourage them to do so; they can track the progress of the incident on the County Council website.