Clear-up goes on 10 months after flooding on Somerset Levels

Residents are starting to move back into homes, but many are frustrated at slow progress of flood defences

Floods in Bridgwater, Somerset, in February. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

 

 

 

Ten months since the murky floodwater began retreating from the village of Moorland on the Somerset Levels, the clear-up is still very much ongoing. Builders’ vans line the main drag, teams of volunteers are busy trying to restore order, and those householders lucky enough to be finally back in their stricken homes are still unpacking boxes and redecorating.
“It’s been really tough,” said Bryony Sadler, mother of two young children, who has just moved back into her home, a former rectory that had never before flooded. “We’re glad to be back but there’s still a lot of work to be done to get the place how we want it.”

Bryony Sadler with her daughter Elsa

And lots of work to be done on the area’s flood defences before the likes of Sadler will feel secure again. Like most here, she is pleased that the government does seem committed to making the low-lying area less susceptible to the sort of extraordinary floods that wreaked havoc last winter, but unimpressed with the speed of work. “They seem to spend a lot of time talking about making improvements but they need to just get on with it,” she said.
For example, one of the schemes promised by the government on Tuesday was funding to “complete the appraisal, scheme development and design” for a barrier at nearby Bridgwater – which many residents of the Levels believe will help stop their homes flooding.
The time-scale for this design phase? Five to six years, according to the Environment Agency. “That’s two governments,” said Sadler. “Who knows what will happen in that time? Things seem to take such a long time.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/02/clear-up-flooding-somerset-levels