Urgent summit called over Gloucestershire flooding

Heavy rain and thunderstorms caused flooding in parts of Stroud town centre in June

Councillors are to hold an urgent summit to better prepare for flooding.

Gloucestershire County Council will hold a meeting with the Environment Agency, water companies and district and parish councils after increasingly frequent flooding in recent years.

The council said extreme weather events such as flooding are set to increase as a consequence of climate change.

Cllr David Drew, who put forward the motion at Shire Hall on 12 September, said it was a cry for help.

He said the summit was about clarifying "who does what" in relation to flooding and "should look at difficult areas and see what resilience can be put in place".

The motion was put forward to Gloucestershire County Council at Shire Hall on 12 September

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Cllr Drew said communities need resilience and his motion noted how the county's highways adverse weather plan has been tested after the events in 2007, 2012, 2014, 2019 and 2020.

'We are going to get hit'

Cllr Graham Morgan, who seconded the motion, said: "Sometime, we are going to get an event in this county. It saddens me.

"We just know that we're going to get hit. It's a plea really for us to get a grip of this because we just know we are going to be hit sooner or later."

The motion was approved unanimously.