Key conference on Saddleworth flooding to be held in November

A KEY conference which could influence decisions to combat Saddleworth flooding is to be held next month.

Saddleworth Parish Council’s environment committee has met representatives from organisations who deal with flooding and a summit has been scheduled for Wednesday, November 30 at 6pm.

Local community associations, Parish and Oldham councillors will be invited to attend the mini-summit at the event at the Civic Hall in Uppermill.

There will be presentations from Unity Partnership, the Environment Agency, United Utilities, the Canal and River Trust, the Peak District National Park Authority, and the Civil Contingencies Unit.

And a group from Rawtenstall, who have set up their own community flood group, will also be at the meeting.

It is hoped once the Flood Plan is established it can be widely publicised and open to the wider community, sometime next year, focussing on a more in-depth look at flooding issues.

The result should be the setting up of a permanent Flood Group in Saddleworth, involving the community, agencies, Oldham Council and the Parish Council.

The plan would be to examine ways of preventing flooding and dealing with its aftermath if the worst happens.

The initiative follows a fact-finding mission by two Parish councillors to study remedies to combat flooding which devastated villages.

Cllrs Katrina Roman and Paul Fryer spent a day with experts from the Environment Agency and Forestry Commission in Pickering, North Yorkshire to see how their flood plan was put in place.

Saddleworth was hit with a month’s average rainfall in just 24 hours last December leaving villages and roads flooded and the River Tame at its highest level since records began.