Northumberland Council in floods bill plea

Nov 12 2008 by Brian Daniel, The Journal

PRESSURE was last night mounting on the Government to meet the full cost of a council’s flood repair bill.

Northumberland county councillors are lobbying the Government to make it an exception to the Bellwin Formula, under which it will pay up to 85% of the costs of repairing flood damage.

The councillors fear that having to pay 15% of its clean-up bill following September’s floods could mean the authority having to fork out millions of pounds.

And this is at a time when the authority must make £55m in savings over the next four years, has a debt of £240m and has £23m frozen in Icelandic banks.

The council’s highways chiefs are said to be facing a £3m bill for repairs to county roads hit by the floods.

These include the A697 at Powburn which was closed by a landslide.

The council will have to redirect money from projects which were due to receive highways funding in the next financial year to cover its 15% of the cost of repairing flood damage to the county’s roads.

Many of these projects had been on waiting lists for years, but face either being put on the back burner or postponed indefinitely.

Rothbury councillor Steven Bridgett last night said he expects the restrengthening on the main road bridge in Rothbury and village steps which have been deemed a health and safety hazard to miss out.

Coun Bridgett said: “We are busy campaigning Government to fund the full 100% and unless those campaigns are successful, we have got to find the 15%. It is millions of pounds.

“This is another knock to the county council and another knock to the unitary authority.

“It could send us into financial ruin.”

A spokeswoman for the Department of Communities and Local Government last night said there have only ever been two examples of 100% of work being covered, both of which were in national incidents of flooding of exceptional nature.

Despite Coun Bridgett’s lobbying, the county council itself believes it is not eligible for any funding under the Bellwin Formula. It was unable to say why last night.

A spokeswoman said: “At this stage, we don’t believe that the county council will be eligible for a Bellwin payment but we have not yet made a final decision on whether to claim. The flood damage across the county was extensive and we recognise that it may be necessary to re-prioritise projects in our existing highways budget to tackle the repairs that are needed.

“It is likely that a paper will be submitted to the next meeting of the county council’s executive in December which will highlight the implications of the recent flooding.”

The CLG spokeswoman said the only work a council would not be recompensed for is that which is normally insurable.

Click here to read more articles from the Morpeth area.

To read more on the Morpeth floods, go to: www.journallive.co.uk/morpethfloods