Should private businesses contribute to the cost of the flood relief channel?

Oxfordshire County Council deputy leader Rodney Rose.

RESIDENTS, business and public sector agencies would all benefit from the construction of a flood relief channel to the west of Oxford.

We all remember the heartache and problems caused by flooding.

How could we forget? The infamous flooding in the summer of 2007 was followed by a number of more recent instances.

I clearly recall on each of those occasions that businesses large and small complained that they were losing money as a result of roads being closed and people not being able to access them.

I fully sympathised at the time with those complaints and I still do.

Those complaints were echoed in all the other parts of southern England that suffered as a result of the wettest winter on record in 2013/14.

As a Conservative politician, I fit the stereotype of a man who instinctively supports private businesses.

I believe a flourishing private sector leads to prosperity for all.

Contributions from the private sector towards a flood channel to the west of Oxford would provide a huge reduction in the risk of flooding disruption for decades ahead.

The risk of lost business and negative economic impacts would diminish hugely as a result of the building of the channel.

The impact alone of keeping transport networks open during flooding would be hugely beneficial.

Public sector organisations such as Oxfordshire County Council have pushed this scheme to the fore.

Before the winter of 2013/14 it was not high on anybody’s list of priorities, now it is.

We have also come up with funding of our own and obtained guarantees of funding from national agencies.

Huge progress has been made in a comparatively short period of time.

We now need one final push from the private sector organisations we are seeking to protect and I know that many of them are keen to help.

I look forward to further progress being made so that we can reach the financial target that will help us cross this finishing line.

NO.

Oxfordshire Chamber of Commerce associate Martin Fessey.

AS ALREADY stated by the Oxfordshire Chamber president, a flood relief channel is greatly needed for businesses and residents.

However, the suggestion that the funding come from local organisations that are already paying local and national taxes is not welcomed by the chamber.

All avenues should be explored but this type of infrastructure should be funded largely by public money.

However, let’s look at the wider picture. Thankfully the Thames Valley has been spared so far this winter, however any resulting sense of security would be misplaced.

The floods of 2014 were by no means the worst to hit the region in living memory, as the flood marks of 1947 will attest.

Insurers paid out more than £1bn in claims after last year’s spate of bad weather – £450m on 18,700 flood claims including 3,200 commercial premises. This has raised fears of a lack of available flood insurance at reasonable cost.

The Government and insurers have agreed a safety net called Flood Re to help households at high risk buy affordable insurance cover.

However, under current rules, Flood Re will not be available to any businesses, since they are considered able to negotiate their own commercial terms with insurers.

How this will impact Thames Valley businesses exposed to potential future floods is yet to be seen, and the chamber is watching closely for evidence of difficulties in obtaining insurance at an affordable cost.

A recent national survey found that 43 per cent of small to medium-sized businesses have no insurance cover or do not know if they are covered for serious bad weather. The risks are compounded by the fact that 46 per cent of SMEs had not considered a business continuity plan to carry on trading or mitigate losses.

Even where insurance is in place to cover financial losses, three out of four businesses that do not have an emergency plan in place do not recover from a major incident such as a flood. So how can businesses do more to protect themselves?

Every business is different, and there is no “one size fits all” emergency plan to respond to a flood. Key to this is an understanding of the impact on the business in the widest sense: premises, finances, people, supply chain and identified steps before, during and after a flood event that will minimise the damage and impact.