MP Rosie Cooper joined calls from ARRCCHS Ormskirk Residents Flood Action Group and Knowsley Ward Borough Councillors for the publication of the infamous Jacobs Hurlston Brook Flood Risk Study.

At an informative and at times heated meeting last Friday which the MP organised to address some of the flooding issues in West Lancashire, she fielded questions from constituents to the panel which included six different agencies with varying responsibilities for flood defence and relief.

Members of the ARRCCHS flood group and Ormskirk’s Knowsley Ward Borough Councillors Gareth Dowling, Nikki Hennessy and Adam Yates asked members of the panel when they can expect to see the study be made public.

The report was first commissioned in 2015 and findings were shared under embargo at its earliest approximately 15 months ago, but there has been no further communication on when or if the report will ever be made public.

MP Rosie challenged the representatives from Lancashire County Council who were present on where the report was and why it hadn’t been made public yet.

Afterwards, she told QLocal: "The ARRCCHS Ormskirk flood group, my constituents, councillors and I are all exasperated waiting to see the findings of this report and its recommendations.

“We’re aware the Hurlston Brook Flood Risk Study concluded its findings in September 2016 and the document has been printed with an April 2017 date, yet it is still not available for public consumption.

“The issue is simply the public don’t know what the recommendations are, what actions can and will be taken and until we know we are at a standstill. We can’t make progress or hold to account any of the agencies mentioned within the report under its recommendations.

“This is a report costing over £100,000 of taxpayers’ money and unless it leads to action it is just money down the drain. The response from Lancashire County Council was not good enough on the night so I have subsequently written the Chief Executive to have this report published and actioned.”

Knowsley Ward’s Cllr Gareth Dowling, a member of the ARRCCHS Ormskirk residents flood action group since 2014 added: “As residents and councillors we’ve been working closely with the key agencies since before I got involved in 2014, and we were making real progress on uncovering the many flooding issues our area faces.

“It has been a thankless task for Carol, Pat and others in engaging with these organisations and lobbying to secure the funding for this much lauded flood report.

“In order for us to make further progress it would useful if we could discuss the report in public and see what recommendations in it we can action. Lancashire County Council need to release this report so residents aren’t kept in the dark.”

I attended the meeting and clearly remember LCC offering to supply MP Rosie Cooper with a copy of the report. Its seems unimaginable that LCC could get away with telling blatant lies in public in front of Councillors, our MP and the other FRMAs, therefore, I can only imagine that Ormskirk's very long awaited report is already on its way to MP Rosie Cooper.

Now might be a good time mention that ARRCCHS aren't the only residents group who are having problems with LCCs odd behaviour. Burscough Flooding Group (BFG) collected a lot of data from residents about the flooding that took place in Burscough on Boxing day 2015, which we wished to supply to LCC, so that it could inform their S19 report. However, there were problems:

• 
  When we asked LCC what their cut off date for data was they simply wouldn't tell us, nor would they tell Burscough's Parish Clerk.
• Then when we guessed that the cut-off date was near, they told us that they didn't need our flooding information because they had they're own and they intimated that it was good.
• When we supplied information anyway, well before the report was issued, LCC refused to include it and went completely over the top by arguing against including it with County Councillor Cynthia Dereli, in LCC's Council Chambers.

Needless to say their S19 report isn't fit for the purpose of reporting or investigating flooding problems in Burscough. Amongst a host of ommissions it missed the fact that all of the major roads in Burscough town were blocked through flooding and virtually every other road was affected by flooding to some degree mainly from UU sewer networks surcharging and LCCs drainage ditches overtopping. A great number of roads were contaminated with raw sewage from UUs network. It is luck not judgement that people didn't die in house fires or from heart attacks because the emergency services couldn't use the A59/A5209, School Lane, Pippin Street Higgins Lane etc, etc on Boxing Day. It's also hard to believe that no was made ill from the tons of raw sewage spilt onto roads gardens and into houses in Burscough, when it seemed like the majority of streets looked like Alexander Close or Gower Gardens.

LCC have done nothing for Burscough, except help to keep Burscough's flooding problems quiet and that in turn has helped to prevent them from being investigated and rectified. Why?

Gavin Rattray - Secretary Burscough Flooding Group