Member of Parliament for Beverley and Holderness, Graham Stuart has, Saturday 14 December, visited South Holderness to witness the devastation left by the tidal surge on the 5th December.
Mr Stuart travelled to Kilnsea to meet with residents whose homes were flooded when the sea defences were breached. He then went to Humber Farm at Welwick to meet with farmers who are working hard to drain flooded land, clear drains and install remedial repairs to the damaged coast defences.
Commenting, Mr Stuart said, “The tidal event on the 5th December was an unusual episode with a high spring tide of 7.2m coupled with an additional 2m tidal surge due to severe weather conditions out at sea. It is good to see that much of the coastal defence work that has been done in recent years held but some defences were breached and that has caused damage to the defences themselves, leaving homes and businesses vulnerable.
“It is essential that the damage to the sea defences at Kilnsea and Welwick are repaired as a matter of urgency as there is another high tide on the 1st January, although this tide is not currently expected to be coupled with an adverse weather event.
“Last week I met with the Secretary of State for the Environment to ask him to provide emergency funding to purchase rock to repair the damaged banks and to let the local farmers get on with repairing the damage without fear of sanctions from the Environment Agency.
“Residents, councillors, land owners, and civil servants have been working flat out to repair the damaged banks since the storm; there has been a real sense of ‘pulling together’ in the area. I am confident of the ability of the local community to know what needs to be done to protect land and property in time for the next high tide event and am pleased to see that they have acted swiftly and are getting on with it.”
South Holderness Councillor, Arthur Hodgson said, “It is imperative that we see the structure of the bank sufficiently engineered to provide adequate protection for the forth-coming spring tides at the beginning of January and it is important that we review the plans for a coastal re-alignment project at Welwick to ensure land and property remain protected.”
