Town council seeks legal advice before flood prevention work

THAME Town Council fears that if it carries out flood prevention work at the Cuttlebrook nature reserve, it may in future be held responsible for any future flooding.
At a meeting of the council on Tuesday (29/07), councillors accepted that they had ‘a duty of care’ to keep the Cuttlebrook clear of debris and to carry out other flood-prevention work. However, some councillors feared that committing funds to the work needed, could be construed as the council accepting responsibility for flood prevention, and therefore being left with a huge bill if flooding should happen again.

Cllr Owen Davies, however, said: “If this is going to take weeks or months to sort out, we could, in the meantime, have another flash flood. There are eight families who are homeless; we do have a duty of care to act soon.”

The Mayor, Cllr Don Butler, said: “We cannot guarantee that flooding would not happen again because the area is in the flood plane.”

Cllr David Laver said that it was his opinion that the council should seek advise that any works it carries out does not exacerbate the problem.
“We should be targetting our efforts in controlling winter flooding. Nothing can be done about the heavy downfalls we have experienced during the last two years.”

It emerged at the meeting that one of the main contributions to the recent flooding that affected several families in Cedar Crescent and Maple Road, Thame, was debris that had collected over time under the two bridges over the Cuttlebrook. This debris appears to have acted like a dam to the huge quantity of water running into them during the heavy rain storms last month.

The Highways authority is to carry out work to clear the debris.

The council voted to delay committing any funds until legal advise as to its responsibilities and obligations had been sought.