Regional flooding throughout Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland was stood down as a major incident on Wednesday 8 January, due to water levels stabilising and weather forecasts looking drier.
Rutland County Council will continue to work with partners in the Local Resilience Forum as we work through the recovery stage. Further rain is due at the weekend but is expected to be light. However, temperatures remain low with an amber temperature warning in place until Sunday. Our gritting operation will remain in place as normal and our safety messages will continue to ensure that our highways remain safe for all users.
Throughout Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland over 500 properties have been reported to have flooded. Five of these properties were located in Rutland.
We are continuing work to ensure residents are safe, our roads are clear and services are not disrupted, after which we will be able to look at all of the information collected. Biffa have been working hard over the week to catch up on missed black bin collections that were suspended on Monday, which we are pleased to say has been completed.
Flood reports that were made via our online form have worked extremely well. The information given by residents was invaluable for our teams. We would like to thank residents for their help in this and ask them to please continue to use the reporting system for any future flooding reports.
We continue to appeal to residents to avoid driving or walking through flood water and to please adhere to road closure signage. Although flood water may not look deep, it can be deceiving and there could also be debris or dislodged manholes that could cause serious injury beneath the water.
"Sadly, our region has once again been hit by extremely high levels of water in a short amount of time. Between 75% and 100% of expected rainfall for January was seen within the first week of the month – the majority of which was over just two days. This heavy rainfall followed previous wet months and therefore unfortunately our region has been hit hard by flooding. We are continuing to work with partners to ensure that our residents are safe and our services are in place during the recovery period.
"Councils across Leicestershire and Rutland are also joining forces to press the Government to release cash to help flood-hit residents. Although lobbying is taking place for financial support, as things stand it currently looks unlikely that there will be any relief funding provided by Government. Therefore, as a council, we may have to now look at options such as considering some kind of council tax relief for families that were forced to leave their homes due to flooding, much like we did for the last storms. This is something that will be discussed as part of our recovery stage and we will keep residents informed."
Councillor Christine Wise, Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Communities
