THE estimated potential cost of the winter’s flooding to Hampshire County Council is £68.5m.

The authority’s response and recovery operation after the most significant rainfall for 250 years, and the scale of the measures taken to protect life and property, are in a report to be discussed by the council’s Cabinet on Monday.

The longer term capital costs of remedial work to damaged highways at more than 300 locations and flood and coastal defence works, to avoid future flooding in badly affected areas, is estimated to be about £63m.

The cost of the emergency response including sandbagging, tree clearing and clean-up costs, adds up to a further £5m.

A major part of the council’s contribution was keeping highways safe and open.

This included: 

  • 100 council staff and 200 contractors on deployment around the clock, putting in place preventative and mitigation measures
  • 354 weeks, or 13,127 hours of highways staff’s time spent on responding to and dealing with the aftermath
  • 1,000 fallen trees removed from roads
  • 22,000 reports and requests for help from the public over the two months, more than three times the average
  • 160 tonnes of crushed concrete used to build a temporary elevated road at Andover Road, Winchester in just 72 hours
  • 80 investigations into floods, with engineering advice, temporary schemes and water diversions and advice to property owners and businesses to protect their homes and possessions
  • 33 detailed bids for funding to the Environment Agency’s Regional Flood and Coastal Committee for future flood risk management researched and prepared

 

Over 70,000 sandbags deployed on highways across the county.

It is anticipated the council will be making a Bellwin claim to the Government for between £3.5m to £4.5m, for the cost of the emergency response.

An £11.5m grant for highways works has been received from Government, which is about a third of the estimated cost of repairs to damaged highways.

Council leader Roy Perry said: “Getting £11.5m is a really helpful first step from Government and we’ll be bidding for more resources, bearing in mind we estimate that another £25m, or more, is needed to fix damaged roads alone.”