northern flood conference

Rory has shown his support for Cumbrian communities affected by flooding at the Northern Flood Conference, held in Carlisle on Saturday, where he joined fellow Cumbrian MPs Jamie Reed (Copeland) and Tony Cunningham (Workington) in a  wide-ranging discussion on the issues affecting Cumbrian communities at risk of flooding.

The conference, organised by a consortium of Cumbrian organisations including Cumbria CVS, Cumbria Community Foundation, the Environment Agency and flood actions groups from Keswick, Cockermouth, and Morpeth, raised issues surrounding community support, flood defence measures, home insurance and government legislation. Speakers included the Commission for Rural Communities’ Dr Stuart Burgess, the Environment Agency’s Phil Younge, and Heather Shepherd of the National Flood Forum.

The Cumbrian MPs agreed that flood prevention and support was a cross-party issue, and expressed their commitment to working together to ensure better support for affected communities.

Rory said: “Living in a flood risk area is deeply distressing. Cumbria has suffered real trauma because of flooding recently, and this conference has been immensely important in bringing together committed local campaigners, members of government agencies, and Cumbrian politicians to discuss how we can better work together to make sure that flood risks are minimised, communities work better together to combat the trauma of flood, and to find solutions to issues such as rising insurance premiums, and implementing better drainage measures. We have ahead of us a real opportunity, with the upcoming Water Bill, to feed into national legislation the needs of communities at risk of flooding. Communities need also to feed us information; tell us where your drainage needs are; bring us examples of prohibitive insurance premiums. These concrete examples help us to better fight your corner in Parliament, and that we are absolutely committed to doing.”

rory_flood_meeting

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