Too many cutbacks on road flood prevention, says council leader

Wiltshire Council plans to put more investment into gully clearing in future

A council leader has openly admitted too many cutbacks have been made on maintenance to reduce the impact of serious flooding.

Richard Clewer said Wiltshire Council, like many, had gone too far with savings on flood prevention work such as gully clearing in decisions made during austerity.

He said it will now find more cash to help deal with the problem.

Mr Clewer said parts of Wiltshire had experienced their worst flooding in living memory after recent storms.

Wiltshire has been hit by major flooding in recent weeks

Opposition Liberal Democrat councillor, Brian Mathew, told the BBC that "we need to see more money spent, it's as simple as that".

"This is just an example of the situation that Wiltshire has got to face.

"Of course it's climate change that's making this happen and we need to deal with it," he added.

Large schemes like the £35m Salisbury River Park project can help in future, but lots of prevention is in more mundane action, like clearing gullies alongside roads to prevent drains being blocked and help water drain away quicker.

The £35m Salisbury River Park project aims to reduce flood risk

Mr Clewer said the council, like many others, had cut back too much in the past when difficult budget decisions had to be made.

"It's one of these areas, perhaps 10 or 12 years ago when austerity hit, which was one of the easy things to cut," he said.

"It's why it was one of the first things I did when becoming leader was to say I want more money in gully cleaning.

"We can't prevent all flooding, but we can do the maintenance to try to minimise the impact," added Mr Clewer, who leads the Conservative-controlled council.

There is also a responsibility on landowners to clear some blocked drains and watercourses.

Richard Clewer said recent flooding had been some of Wiltshire's worst in living memory

The council leader said this winter had already been "a tough one, especially in terms of the amount of the rain we're getting".

He added: "There are bits which have had worse in other years, but across most of the county you've got to go back to 1950.

"You combine that with freezing weather and you've got a really tricky combination."