Josh Fenton-Glynn MP: Fighting for flood defence schemes

Josh Fenton-Glynn writes: On the weekend of November 23-24 we had heavy rain combined with snow melt. For those of us who have lived through previous floods in the Calder Valley it was a scary experience. Some homes and businesses were unfortunately flooded, but we narrowly avoided what could have been a much worse disaster. A big part of that was flood defence work now in place, our amazing volunteer flood wardens, and natural flood management schemes by groups like Slow the Flow.

I have been working on flood prevention for much of the past decade, including two years chairing Calderdale Council’s flooding Scrutiny board. The latest near miss underlined how much is still to be done and now that I’m Calder Valley’s MP I will fight for it to happen.

As an MP the fight against flooding takes many forms. On the day I was in the unique position of being regularly briefed by local and national agencies. I felt it was important to share that information with the community, alongside advice on how to stay safe. You may have seen me out and about talking to residents as well as posting social media updates on Saturday. But there was much more to do beyond helping clear drains and letting people know about travel restrictions.

I had already raised with the Environment Agency my frustration that it has been almost a decade since we had devastating floods in Calder Valley, and yet work on prevention schemes in Elland and Hebden Bridge has not even begun. I gave several media interviews on Sunday to raise the profile of this issue, whilst also paying tribute to the council and volunteers who kept us safe. I made sure to underline the demand for permanent flood schemes.

I was back in Parliament on Monday, determined to keep pushing the message home. There was a ministerial statement on the issue, and I spoke about the fact we were centimetres from disaster as well as the need for greater action from the Environment Agency. I also spent time behind the scenes trying to make things happen, including meeting with flooding minister Emma Hardy to explain how our lives are impacted in Calder Valley.

Later that week I was in the chamber for a statement on international agreements on climate change from the COP summit. During the debate I heard one leading Conservative after another talk about climate change as if it were totally unrelated to the UK, and any investment would be damaging to our economy. Eventually I decided I could not allow this to go on. We have had a 250-year event and a 100-year event in the Calder Valley in the past decade, and we experience extreme weather because of climate change. I stood up to make the point that the economy in areas like Calder Valley will not survive unless we take climate change seriously, linking my question to green jobs here.

As a country we abandoned our leadership on climate change during the last government. It is vital to communities like ours that we renew a laser focus on the action we need, now and in the long term.