TWYFORD councillor Stephen Conway (Lib Dem) wanted reassurance that the council’s draft local plan “includes robust measures to project as accurately as possible future flood risk”.
“I ask because both run-off from current development and the increased incidence of heavy rainfall events associated with climate change suggest that there will be a significant expansion of the areas at risk of flooding over the local plan period,” he said.
He made the comments at a meeting of Wokingham Borough Council held on Thursday, March 24.
Responding, Cllr John Halsall said that the council’s work applied the Environment Agency climate change allowances, and site specific flood risk assessments.
Cllr Conway said the response didn’t fill him with confidence, saying the EA’s submission to the Draft Local Plan highlighted “quite serious concern” for some of the sites identified, and the council had not built in proper safeguards.
“Their overall comment is they disagree with the viability of the plan,” he said.
Cllr Halsall said there was no point in having a consultation “unless you expect people to give you a reaction to what you propose”, promising that the concerns would be taken into account.
