YORK’S flood inquiry authors will face councillors at a key meeting later this week.

All 47 of City of York’s councillors are due to meet on Thursday night, and they will hear from the panel who carried out York’s independent flood inquiry.

The investigation was commissioned in the months after the Boxing Day 2015 floods, with £50,000 of city council money set aside to fund it.

The panel was led by lawyer Angharad Davies, and she will present the report and face questions at the full council meeting on Thursday.

When the report was published last month, it praised the resilience of people in the city, but made scores of recommendations including many for the city council.

 

York Press:

An update for Thursday shows how much progress has been made in adopting those changes.

It confirmed that new radios have been bought and tested, in case the telephone exchange is flooded and disabled again, and West Offices has been lined as a potential Silver Command base instead of Fulford Road police station.

However some recommendations have not been implemented, and in the case of streets like Clementhorpe, Tower Place and Peckitt Street, council staff have said it would be “disproportionate” to draw up a specific flood evacuation plan, as the report suggests.

Instead, communities can come up with their own emergency plans, and households should think about their own evacuation.

Recommendations were also made about accommodation and catering for people who may come in to help, like mountain rescue volunteers, but said as needs change between incidents the council said those would be better addressed “on the day”.

Thursday’s meeting will see councillors asked to confirm the inquiry has fulfilled its terms of reference, and to accept the report.

Staff are also asking for a one-off lump sum to be set aside to “assess and deliver the agreed recommendations” from the inquiry report, although the exact amount of money is still being decided.