Flooding (West Cumbria)

I offer my sympathies to the hon. Gentleman's constituents. As well as Hall Park View, the village of Barepot was completely devastated, but because it was on the other side of the river, people tended to forget about it. In Camerton, people could not bury their dead because the churchyard was flooded. Wives could not be buried next to their husbands and so on—it was horrendous. On the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question, there has to be co-ordination by a range of organisations, but the money has to be in place. I shall deal with local models a little later, but we could learn a great deal from the flood action groups—Sue Cashmore's group in Cockermouth and Cecil Thompson's group in Workington. Sue's group, working with Brian Watson, actually has a structure. It has a chair and sub-committees, including ones dealing with the media and the Environment Agency. It is a very professional organisation, from which we could learn a great deal. We have said that Cockermouth flooded, Workington flooded, houses flooded and so on, but that was only part of the story. The hon. Gentleman mentions Eamont bridge. The bridges going down in west Cumbria was absolutely devastating. Not only did it result in loss of life, but we lost Harbour bridge; we lost Northside bridge, where PC Barker lost his life; and we lost Navvies bridge. Workington, or Calva, bridge is still not open. On the Saturday, the Papcastle bridge was closed as well, and I talked to a taxi driver the following day. He had already agreed the fare—£5 or £6—to go from Workington to Seaton, which is a journey of about a mile. Someone standing in Workington can see Seaton. That day, the taxi driver did a 180-mile round trip: he drove from Workington to Penrith, Penrith to Carlisle, Carlisle to Maryport, and Maryport to Seaton. He then dropped his passenger off—for a fiver—and drove all the way back. That gives hon. Members some idea of the difficulties that we faced. On top of that, even when Papcastle bridge was repaired, people were still doing 20 or 30-mile round trips, when a mile would normally have done. The forbearance and patience of people in Seaton, Siddick, Northside, Barepot and further afield who were having to travel such huge distances, was absolutely incredible.