Following visits to the area between Christmas and New Year Jeremy Hunt MP for South West Surrey made a another visit this Friday to talk with some of residents of Catteshall Road, Godalming who have been particularly hard hit by flooding as a result of the recent severe weather.
Jeremy said: "Residents of Catteshall Road were particularly hard hit by the floods over Christmas and they are rightly frustrated that a scheme that could have protected them was not given go-ahead a decade ago. The Lammas Lands clearly used to act as a kind of reservoir of last resort in a way it does not now and in blunt terms we just need more capacity to hold water so that it doesn't overflow into people's homes. The group I have set up with Waverley leader Robert Knowles is designed to make sure we learn from what went wrong and I am determined we will."
Jeremy formed the Waverley Infrastructure Resilience Group, which met at Waverley Borough Council’s offices in Godalming for its first meeting last Friday (February 7). The aim of the group is to explore where the response can be improved to severe weather in the future and what prevention could provide a benefit to communities. On setting up the group, Mr Hunt said: "We simply can't assume there won't be repeats of the extreme weather we have been seeing locally and we need to be better prepared.I am pleased we have taken the unprecedented step of bringing together all the infrastructure companies and emergency services to see what needs to be done. Everyone is committed to solving this and we have a tight timescale in place to make sure that work starts this year."