It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). There is a Team North Lincolnshire, which Team Hampshire on these Benches will do our best to follow.
I have to say that the situation on the ground in my constituency is improving, but the crisis is far from over. Everything we face there and everywhere I have been in the past few weeks has been described as and compared with the events of 2000, when we were last badly hit by flooding. People have been watching the water and river levels to see how these floods compare with those of that year.
I have not been on piste or on beach during the past few weeks; I have been in my constituency to help out where I could. The village of Kings Worthy has been hit particularly badly, with many road closures that have caused huge inconvenience to local people. In the village of Headbourne Worthy, huge groundwater issues have caused sewage problems and a huge loss of business for local pubs and the Good Life garden centre. In the village of Sutton Scotney, which I visited last weekend, several people have had to leave their homes, and will be looking for the help outlined earlier by the Secretary of State. The village of Hursley has suffered huge issues with rising groundwater and sewage levels; when I visited it, raw sewage was coming down the street. I have learned about the ruthlessness of water over the past few weeks. Water will find the quickest, most ruthless route to the bottom. It does not discriminate between the things that it goes through or across in getting to the bottom. I have seen the devastating impact of that in the village of Littleton over the past few weeks. I have also seen it in the centre of the great city of Winchester, which the River Itchen flows through.
Over the past few weeks in my constituency, I have seen an incredible example of what the Prime Minister would call the big society. Communities have come together and responded fantastically. I will name-check a few people because they deserve it. In the village of Twyford, a gentleman called David Sullivan gets up very early and does a water level reading, which he e-mails to me. He has done that every day for the past fortnight. David Sullivan, Angela Forder-Stent of the parish council and the rest of the team in Twyford have been phenomenal. Parish clerk Sue Hedges and Councillor Stephen Godfrey in Sutton Scotney have worked tirelessly. Harry Whorwood and Giles Vigor-Robertson in Headbourne Worthy have basically given up work over the past few weeks to protect their communities.
I am name-checking those people and talking about their community spirit because it shows the response that communities can give to the devastation that flooding can bring, which many Members have described. The stoicism and pragmatism that I have seen have been remarkable. From the constituents I have met over recent days, I would say that the older they are, the greater their stoicism and pragmatism is, because they have seen it all before.
The motion mentions the Pitt report, which I have of course read. It is true that some of the recommendations of the Pitt report have not been implemented. That is regrettable and we need to see to that. It stated in particular that multi-agency working must be better next time. In my constituency, the multi-agency approach has worked. The Environment Agency, Hampshire county council, Winchester city council, the parishes, Hampshire fire and rescue service and, of course, the Army have been involved. I was in Kings Worthy one morning during half term last week trying to move 1,000 sandbags, when 10 chaps from the Royal Signals at Bulford turned up to help. I can tell the House that, with my shoulders, they were very welcome.
The multi-agency working has been brilliant and responsive at all times. The Environment Agency has received a lot of criticism over the past few weeks. Some of it has been deserved in other parts of the country, but that is for other Members to touch on. In my area, the Environment Agency has more than risen to the challenge. Mike O’Neill deserves a mention. He even went door-to-door with me in parts of central Winchester to talk to and reassure residents. He deserves great credit for that. At one point, water was flowing down the appropriately named Water lane in Winchester, which the River Itchen runs past, at 12,000 litres per second—very fast—towards the ancient city mill. That was terrifying for residents. However, the multi-agency working and the good thinking of the Environment Agency prevented flooding in hundreds of homes. It deserves our thanks. The agencies have played a bad hand very well.
Upstream from Winchester, the Royal Engineers lowered several hundred 1-tonne bags of gravel into the River Itchen from the bridge of the M3 motorway to restrict its flow. That has not been done before. It slowed the Itchen and held it back. It flooded some farmland in the village of Easton in the Itchen valley, but farmers were happy to allow that to help save Winchester. It worked. That was a roll of the dice by the Environment Agency. When Chris Smith came to Winchester yesterday, he went to the River Itchen and saw the work that had been done. I know that he was impressed and I thank him and his team for their support in doing that work.
In closing, I am concerned about the bids that the Environment Agency has asked Hampshire county council, as the risk management authority in my area, to put together for the six-year plan for 2015-16 to 2020-21. It is good that a long-term plan is being put in place, but the process is incredibly rushed. The council is under incredible pressure to put it together. Just today, two parish councillors in my area have told me about meetings that they will have in the next few weeks to consider the response to the flooding crisis.
We need time to get this right. Of course we do not need to drag it out through the whole year until next winter comes around quickly and we are back in this situation again. However, my constituents want to know that proposals that miss the deadline because of proper consideration of what we need following the floods will not miss the boat, and that we will not be told that they have missed out as a result. I hope that the Minister—who is nodding—hears that point.
In conclusion, there is always more the Government can do, and of course if there were an endless pot of money we could do everything we want. However, the relief package that has been put in place and administered so efficiently by Councillor Humby and his colleagues at Winchester city council is welcome, and it will be made use of by me and my constituents.
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