The newly elected Reform UK Lincolnshire council has abolished a flooding committee as it attempts to take control of Lincolnshire’s bloated budgets.
Lincolnshire County Council’s Flood and Water Management Scrutiny Committee was axed by the party which took control of the authority in this month’s elections.
The new administration identified that the Lincolnshire County Council’s Flood and Water Management Scrutiny Committee was adding nothing to the Council’s efforts to fight flooding, as the closed committee allowed councillors to hold bodies like Anglian Water, the Environment Agency and Internal Drainage Boards to account, but this was something that the Council was already able to do.
This is also a policy where a Reform Parliament is expected to legislate direct liability for.
Flooding will now sit within the Environment Committee, which already deals with issues such as waste and pollution and the Environment Committee will now meet eight times per year instead of four. The New leader of the Council Sean Matthews (Ref) promised the new administration would work “longer and harder on flooding than ever before…..and whether flooding is man-made or a natural cycle of events, we won’t neglect flooding…. our election mandate was to reduce waste and simplify the council, and this will do that.”
‘Silence voices’
Lincolnshire suffered some of the worst flooding in its history during from deluges in Storm Babet and Henk, along with fresh flooding in January and isn’t just about technical solutions, but involves a complax web of relationships and the Council will look to change the cozy relationship between contractors where flooding simply isn’t properly managed” said a Reform Councillor.