Last November, over 100 new homes were flooded in Ruthin in North Wales. Today, ten months after the awful events which left many homeless, independent investigators have published their findings.
The people who bought these new homes were given assurances that there was only a 1 in 1000 year chance of their homes being flooded. There are therefore two possibilities before considering the findings of the report. The first is that these poor residents were just monumentally unlucky and the 1 in 1000 years chance actually happened. The second is frankly more plausible. The second is that those assurances should never have been made in the first place because the infrastructure did not support the promise made.
It was widely known in the locality that the site of the new homes had once been an area which flooded frequently. A culvert was then constructed by the local council to alleviate the problem. This obviously opened up the possibility of the local council sanctioning the building of new houses which was duly done. So what exactly happened, I hear you ask?
The independent investigators found that screens on the new estate which surrounded the culvert were of a poor design which didn't meet with current standards. This resulted in the culverts becoming blocked with insufficient access. But who was responsible for granting permission to build? Whose responsibility was it to ensure that the builders complied with regulations? You may, like me, be forgiven for thinking that such a responsibility would rest with the local council given that they gave the green light to the building project and they have a planning regulations department complete with inspectors for the enforcement thereof. Wrong. Despite the fact that the council freely admit that they have no maintenance records relating to when the culverts were unblocked, the report concludes that the local council are not to blame. This despite the Chief Executive admitting that there were lots of things which could have been done better. Given that he is the Chief Executive of the council, I can only assume that he was referring to his own organisation. It is hard to imagine circumstances in which the council could be held to account on the basis of this report.
To all the poor residents, my heart goes out to you. To have your home flooded is one of the most distressing events there is. To have gone through this and learn that it ought to have been avoided must be hard to swallow. In keeping with the times, nobody seems prepared to accept responsibility and all the while Joe Public foots the bill. The effect on their home insurance is not worth thinking about. The effect on them emotionally must have been extremely distressing. You work hard to invest in your home and make it your own little piece of pride and joy. I am gutted for them and can't believe that there is no culpability at the feet of the council. It must therefore bring into question exactly what the point of planning and building regulations are. Back in the real world though, this will be booted in to the long grass and swept under the carpet.
Needless to say, now that the horse has bolted, all sorts of measures are now allegedly being implemented to ensure that - all together now - "this never happens again"! In her closing comments, the "independent" Chairperson said, "Hindsight is a wonderful thing but we cannot see any evidence that the decisions taken at the time were anything other than reasonable" and that "things would be done differently from now on".
The residents responded by saying that the report raised more questions than answers. They also stated that "accountability has been avoided at every turn". Any neutral observer would struggle to contend with these views. As a final chapter to this sorry affair, the house builder now hopes to resume the project and complete their full quota of 178 new homes. They will though be working very closely with the council and other agencies. The arrogance of the builders and the council is beyond words. Are these people accountable to anybody? Anyone at all? I really do wonder how such a disgraceful chapter can be exonerated. On a final note, there is of course one obvious question. Who chose the independent investigator and how much money would have been at stake had either the builder or the council been found to be at fault? Doubtless, such figures are not for public consumption...
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