WEST WORCESTERSHIRE MP Dame Harriett Baldwin has secured full funding for the long-awaited flood defence scheme for Severn Stoke only days after the project was threatened with a shut down.
And the MP thanked the Environment Agency and Worcestershire County Council and urged them to work together with urgency to get the contract agreed and get spades in the ground this Spring on a project which she has campaigned for since major flooding hit the community in 2012.
News was communicated prior to Christmas that the scheme could be cancelled owing to a funding shortfall, but Dame Harriett immediately wrote to Flooding Minister Emma Hardy MP asking her to review the decision and issue a Ministerial Direction.
A letter from the Minister confirming that funding has now been secured was delivered yesterday and the Environment Agency will now liaise with the Worcestershire County Council highways team to ensure that the flood defences and the road raising project can start this Spring.
Dame Harriett said: “I am delighted that the Environment Agency can now press on with the long-awaited flood defence scheme and I am particularly grateful for the intervention of Minister Emma Hardy who has been following this matter closely and has offered me her constant support to get this scheme underway.
“This project has been a long time on the drawing board but it has planning permission, archaeological studies have been carried out and some soil is already onsite.
“I plan to meet with Worcestershire County Council in the coming days to ensure that its contractors are able to work with the Environment Agency to get the work done quickly but I am pleased that common-sense has prevailed.
“This has been one of my longer campaigns but I look forward to standing on a new flood bund in Severn Stoke protecting homes, businesses, the historic church and the vital A38 link road.”
