Agenda item

(1)          Mr Harwood introduced the report by explaining that Little Venice was a low-lying site containing mobile residential units and was located close to the confluence of the Rivers Beult and Medway.   It was consequently at significant at risk of flooding. The most serious recent flooding event had occurred in 2013/14 when the response had included rescue by boat at night. 

(2)       Mr Harwood continued by saying that the 2013/14 experience at Little Venice had led to work being undertaken with the site operators and other partners (Yalding PC, the EA, Kent Fire and Rescue and Maidstone BC) to enhance the resilience of the site and its community. On site Emergency Plans had been significantly upgraded, as had the engineering methods for the mobile homes.  The most significant improvements had related to the precision of warning and informing measures in response to EA Flood Alerts.

(3)        Mr Harwood then said that the biggest challenge faced was the historic planning permission which gave little opportunity to the Local Planning Authority to arrange for big changes to the site.  The approach adopted had therefore been based on contingency planning. 

(4)       Mr Harwood said that there had been a number of stakeholder meetings over the past year.  These included a meeting held on Monday, 6 December 2021. The notes of this meeting were contained in Appendix 2 to the report. 

(5)       Mr Rayner asked how many Flood Wardens had specific responsibility within the Little Venice community. He added that this was important as Little Venice was historically somewhat isolated from the rest of the Parish of Yalding. 

(6)       Mr Rayner then said that advertisements could still be found in places such as SE London and NW Kent encouraging people to sell their homes and use the money from the sale to purchase a home in Little Venice without being fully aware of the problems which might arise. 

(7)       Mr Rayner then referred to paragraph 2.9 of Appendix 1 which was a record of the virtual site meeting on 20 September 2020.  This paragraph highlighted the problems faced in evacuating people from the site during the flooding event in March 2020.  He said that KCC as the social services authority and Maidstone BC as the housing authority ought to be doing more to restrict the nature of the people who were moving into the site. It was wrong that 16 vulnerable people were living on a site that was one of the most prone to flooding in Kent.   The incident described showed the great difficulty with which these people had been evacuated and drew attention to the lack of responsibility of any of the partner agencies to return them to Little Venice after the emergency was over.    

(8)       Mr Harwood replied that the key point was that Little Venice was a private development and that the residents were private householders.  In these circumstances, the most positive approach was to work in partnership with all concerned to achieve the best possible outcome. 

(9)       Mr Rayner said that he remained concerned that the most vulnerable people had not been moved to areas on site that were at least risk of flooding.    Although the site was privately owned, public money was being spent whenever Adult Social Services and others had to intervene.  If, at any stage, there was a significant flooding event in which lives were lost, the coroner would need to be informed that he and others had raised the issues on many occasions but that insufficient action had been taken for bureaucratic reasons.  A catastrophe was clearly foreseeable, and, given the circumstances, it was unacceptable to read in paragraph 2.15 of Appendix 1 that: “If granted, this (the LDC application) would lead to a further 40 caravans with the possibility of a further 120 if the planning process were to be repeated.”   

(10)     Mr Harwood said that the on-site Emergency Plan represented a big step forward.  It had been developed with input from all the partner agencies.  He added that there were other sites across the county which were vulnerable to frequent flooding, requiring the social care and emergency services to intervene on a regular basis.  Work would continue to ensure that the right plans were in place at Little Venice and that they would be constantly improved in content and operation. 

 (11)     Mr Rayner said that he doubted that people who moved onto the site were aware of the risks from flooding when they did so.  He had looked at the Little Venice website which did not inform the reader of any such problem. 

(12)     Mr Rogers said that he had looked at the planning pages on the Maidstone BC website and had read that the LDC application had been refused in December 2021.  

(13)     Mr Sole asked whether future reports on the Little Venice site could include input from the residents themselves.  Mr Harwood replied that there was a residents’ group on site whose views could be factored into the Committee’s discussions.

(14)     RESOLVED that the progress made be noted together with the comments made by Members of the Committee.