Flood Warden

The following information was received from NWLDC on the 19th January 2021.

There are currently weather warnings in place for Leicestershire with more heavy rain forecast that could cause localised flooding. We're encouraging our communities to be prepared and alert to this possibility, and not to wait until more rain arrives to prepare for flooding.

Our webpage contains useful information for residents about preparing for flooding, where to purchase flood defence resources such as sandbags from, and links to specialist flooding websites such as the Environment Agency.

Sandbags

In light of the recent heavy rain and the flooding threat that has now begun to recede we wanted to issue a brief reminder about our distribution of sandbags.

We keep a limited number of sandbags to help protect residential buildings. These sandbags are designated for emergency use and are held at our Coalville depot ready for deployment in the event of an emergency flooding situation.

Holding them at our council site allows us to triage our sandbags using our limited staffing resources to those that are either most vulnerable or at the highest risk of flood waters entering their property at any given time – based on local intelligence and advice from partners such as the Environment Agency and the Met Office.

Periods of heavy rain will usually lead to flood warnings at numerous locations in the district at any one time. Asking residents to collect sandbags from us allows us to be responsive to a wider need rather than focusing our attention on just one or two locations.

In exceptional circumstances we do usually deliver sandbags to locations at imminent risk of flooding, but Covid-19 restrictions currently impede our ability to effectively resource this in a way that would be safe for staff and residents.

Asking residents to collect sandbags allows us to establish a controlled area for collection where no staff or residents are put at risk.

More important than all the above is that we continue to work together to encourage residents to prepare themselves for flooding and remind them it is primarily their responsibility to protect their property. Lots of information on how to do this is available online including on our local LLR Prepared webpage.