Councillors approved Hemsby site for housing... three weeks later it was under water

Sam Russell Friday, March 15, 2013
3:52 PM

This is the site where planning councillors ruled nine affordable homes can be built.

Flooding in Newport Road, Hemsby, in September 2006.

Permission for the homes at Newport Road, Hemsby was granted on February 19, and less than a month later the site was under water.

Residents say the street was previously flooded in 2006, with thousands of pounds of damage caused and months of disruption.

But despite warnings, a majority of councillors on Great Yarmouth Borough Council’s development control committee ignored these fears.

Rural Tory councillors who objected said Labour councillors voted along party lines to pass the plans - though there is no party whip for planning.

And residents are mourning the fact that the application was approved.

Peggy Sutton, 67, lives a stone’s throw from where the affordable homes will be built, and remembers flooding in September 2006.

“My husband said I was like Canute, trying to hold the water back,” she said. “It was horrid, when it invades your home.

“The whole bottom floor had to be replaced, all the skirting boards and carpets and furniture that was damaged.”

She added the ground floor was uninhabitable for five months, and that the proposed development site is even lower down than her home.

And she sighed: “They won’t listen.”

George Jermany, Conservative councillor for East Flegg ward, voted against the application and warned councillors of flood risk.

“It’s in the wrong place,” he said. “The exact spot where this development is going to be is in the point where all the fields meet together at the bottom of a slight incline, and oh boy do it flood.

“I use that road so regular it’s unbelievable and we know it exactly, but when it was put through it wasn’t taken into account.”

He added two other sites were available but passed over and the situation is regrettable, but said “the bottom line is it’s passed and it’s going to happen”.

Shirley Weymouth, Tory councillor for East Flegg, was the only Tory councillor to vote for building the homes on the land that is now under water.

She said: “I’ve got no regrets and I’m pleased that the scheme is going ahead.

“It will resolve any water issues in the area as they will be doing a drainage scheme.”

She added the social housing is much needed.

Labour planning chairman Mick Castle said last weekend’s flooding at the site is “not particularly relevant” as other places were hit too.

He said: “When the planning application was dealt with it certainly wasn’t felt there was a major problem, otherwise we would have included that with our response.”

The applicant behind the nine home affordable housing development is Orwell Housing Association, which has its headquarters in Ipswich.

Wendy Evans-Hendrick, director of development and property services, said: “In terms of any new development, we would carry out a flood risk assessment and within that there will be designed measures to mitigate against that [flood risk].”