With another 45mm of rain in places overnight, Met Office reports indicate record-breaking amounts of rain this month in Bedfordshire – not just for September but for any month on record – and Central Bedfordshire has been the hardest hit of any neighbouring local authority area.
Our emergency responders have been working round the clock since Sunday night alongside partners from the Bedfordshire Local Resilience Forum (BLRF), and volunteers from the Bedfordshire Local Emergency Volunteers Executive Committee (BLEVEC) and Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) to ensure the safety of residents and minimise disruption.
Assistance centres were set up in Leighton Buzzard at Meadow Way Community Centre and in Shefford at Shefford Hall, offering a place to go for those whose homes have been flooded or need other assistance or advice. The council’s leisure centres and libraries are open and offering respite for anyone who needs it.
Since Sunday, the council and its partners have:
- responded to flooding at 32 locations, supporting vulnerable residents and those in imminent danger
- responded to over 70 reports of flooded properties – with more that are likely to have not yet been reported
- set up and run a 24-hour emergency contact centre
- been out ensuring roads are cleared as quickly as possible, clearing drains and gullies as flood waters recede, and arranging emergency road closures and diversions
- coordinated the immediate response to the flooding of homes and businesses, mobilising and coordinating volunteers
- found temporary accommodation for the most vulnerable
- supported homeowners and businesses with advice and guidance on how to prepare and recover from a flood
If you or someone you know is vulnerable and needs assistance, contact the council’s emergency helpline number on 0300 300 8500. Please note, this is not to request sandbags or aquasacs. While we prioritise those who are vulnerable and need urgent assistance, if there is a threat to life call 999.
Road closures are in place in numerous locations, and our advice is to only travel if you need to, and don’t walk, cycle or drive through flood waters. We ask that people don’t ignore flood warning or road closure signs, and if you are driving through shallow water, it’s very important to do so slowly as it can push water into people’s homes.
We are urging people to continue checking our flooding web page for advice and updates. This now includes information on what to do if you’ve been flooded, how you can access practical and emotional support, advice for contacting insurers, and more.
Councillor Adam Zerny, Leader of the Council, said:
We have never seen this level of impact from floods before, and we’re immensely grateful to council officers, volunteers, and emergency services who are all working together to help the most-affected communities. We’re also grateful for the support of residents and businesses, many of whom have been badly hit themselves.
Understandably, we are getting lots of queries about how to prevent future flooding on this scale. It’s important that we work together with all the organisations involved in flood preparation and defence to look at that, but while we are still very much in response mode, that’s not our priority right now. The best thing people can do is to keep checking our website, which we’re updating with flood information, advice about how to prepare for a flood, and guidance and support for those who have been affected.
Meanwhile, as well as visiting some of the flood-hit areas this week, I have met with Emma Hardy MP, the Minister for Water and Flooding, to help ensure that we are front and centre of any discussions about additional support and funding that might be available in the future.
Lastly, I want to reiterate my thanks to the hundreds of volunteers, council officers, and emergency services who have worked round the clock to minimise the impact of these floods, and to people across Central Bedfordshire who have shown such tremendous resilience and community spirit, pulling together to help each other during what, for many, continue to be very challenging times.
The council and Environment Agency are collecting information about the impacts of the flooding. This will help in continued work with government and other agencies to look at ways of enhanced flood prevention, response, and recovery. They are encouraging people and businesses to provide information about how they have been impacted via a form available from the flooding update pages of the council’s website.