1 June 2021
Yaxham Flooding

Thousands of Mid Norfolk residents were devastated this Christmas, and in the early months of this year, by:

  • Severe flooding
  • Awful sewerage outflows
  • Accompanying power cuts
  • Poor response from UK Power Networks, Anglian Water and the Environment Agency

Yaxham was one of my worst affected communities and, this past Friday, I joined a Zoom meeting with Parish Council members, as well as representatives of Flagship Housing, Anglian Water and Norfolk County Council’s Highways and Flood/Water Management teams.

In what was a very productive meeting, Anglian Water outlined some of the measures they are putting in place to prevent their foul water systems from becoming overwhelmed by heavy surface water flows in future. Norfolk County Council also pledged to continue efforts, alongside the Parish Council, to identify landowners/homeowners who were neglecting their responsibilities for handling of surface water on their land and work with them to find better ways of managing the flows.

With planning permissions for up to 120 new homes already given in Yaxham, the community are rightly worried about the impact this additional demand will place on a system that has been so heavily impacted in recent months and years.

That’s why I welcomed, too, Flagship’s commitment to working with all partners to ensure that their new developments have the appropriate drainage systems to serve not only new residents, but also the existing community.

Although positive, there is much still to do – and I will not shirk from my responsibilities either. Along with my fellow parliamentary colleagues here in Norfolk, I will continue to campaign in Westminster on the need for the planning reforms to give much stronger recognition to proper drainage for new development, and flooding as a whole.