A NEW strategy for managing the risk of flooding in the district has been put on hold to undergo further scrutiny.

The Council’s decision-making Executive had signed off on the strategy earlier this month, but now a member of the Corporate overview and scrutiny committee has taken the rare step of ‘calling in’ the decision for examination.

Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, who is also leader of the Liberal Democrat group, said she wanted to make sure the strategy would not hamper the scrutiny committee’s separate investigation into the Boxing Day floods of 2015.

The cross-party committee was tasked with assessing the official response to the devastation seen in many parts of the district last year, and published its findings in September.

It found the authorities’ response to severe floods needs to “greatly improve”and had set out eight recommended improvements.

Cllr Sunderland said she wanted to make sure the district’s new flood risk strategy - a technical document which looks at flooding more generally rather than any specific incident - would not hinder this work.

She said: “The left hand and the right hand have been doing different jobs and there doesn’t seem to be a place at which the left hand and the right hand connect.

“My concern, as we set a strategy, is that the views of residents are taken into consideration.

“We just want to check through it, because it is setting the strategic direction for flood water management for the next 10 years.”

She said she was concerned that the scrutiny committee’s report had simply been noted at a meeting of the Full Council earlier this year, saying it was important action was taken on the recommendations.

Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, the member of the Labour Executive whose portfolio includes flood prevention, said: “The scrutiny process is an important part of the local democratic function.

“I’m confident none of it [the strategy] goes against the recommendations of the committee.

“The committee was looking at the response to the specific flooding incident and as I have been saying for a while, this strategy is about flood risk so it shouldn’t really cross over anyway.

“I don’t think it needed to be called in and I don’t think there is any risk there.”

Cllr Ross-Shaw said in a couple of months they would also be discussing the leadership’s response to the scrutiny committee’s report, and while he didn’t want to pre-empt this meeting, he thought that “for the most part, members will be happy with the progress we have made” on the recommendations.

He said: “We will go back and reassure them we are making the right progress.”

The scrutiny committee will meet to discuss the call-in at 5.30pm on Thursday at City Hall.

There, councillors will have three options: release the flood risk management strategy for implementation, refer it back to the Executive for further consideration or instead send it to the Full Council.

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