What do you make of the response to the June floods? Could more have been done to limit the damage and disruption?

robert
is there any flood defences?

tim
help omg

Tans R
This is dreadful something needs to be done or we will loose a lot like houses etc. i study geography and the flooding is only going to get worse. We all need to pull through

sarah
omg

Lindie - Worcestert
Apparently authoriies where unable to get to the areas requiring flood barriers in time because of flooding elsewhere. But really do we all have nothing better to do than sit around and point fingers! you brits jusy don't have a clue how lucky you are! In the words of JFK "ask not what your country can for you......" (i am hopeing you all know the rest of that speech) Let's be gratefull it wasn't a tsunami, and find someone who needs a hand!

Elisabeth Amies
Those of us who choose to live near rivers should not complain when they flood - it is their nature. It is up to us to look after ourselves and make provision - and most of us have done that very well. I have nothing but praise for Wychavon District Council who have offered accommodation, help and advice and given practical help wherever possible. Their resources have been stretched to the utmost. Throughout Friday and Saturday we spoke to many officials who were concerned, sensible and helpful. They have now set up a fund to assist traders and others affected. What is more, car parks are free for a time. We owe our council a great deal - now is not the time to criticise them and complain. Even now when everyone here in Pershore is faced with a massive clean-up the Town Council have arranged a public meeting for us to voice our feelings. I sincerely hope the moaners stay at home.

Richard Pope
Flood defences are a complete waste of time and money. In the event of an extreme natural event like the one we have just witnessed our incompetent tinkering will make no difference. Councils and governments have proved to everyone during this crisis how inadequate and incompetent they are - who are the idiots who grant planning permission to build houses on flood plains.

laura thomas
i have been stuck in my flat since friday night i live on the high street in droitwich we only had electric put back on yesterday evening. something seroiusly needs to be done to ensure this doesnt happen again. new drainage system would be a start.i still have raw sewage floating in my hall way

Glenn..Kidderminster
Emergency services, superb radio wonderful both faultless..environment agency need to review logisticslocal govenment...saw a prob and tried...national goverment..wakey wakey..people need your help..now...

Chris Crowley
Everyone seems to be blaming the floods on the so called "building on floodplains" This could not be further from the truth. As one of the "builders" we have to carry out flood risk assessments for the enviroment agency. After jumping through hoops for them we face installation of sustainable urban drainage systems. This in itself is no real problem. What is rarely seen by the public at large is the areas that these systems empty the rainfall into. I am currently working on a scheme in Hereford and the condition of the waterways in which our flow will be directed into is frankly appalling. I doubt if the brook has seen any maintenance work in at least 20 years. If the Enviroment Agency spent money on regular and diligent management of the waterways then the capacity for dealing with flash floods would be a least doubled. More attention must to paid to this area of drainage than any other. Let us look at the Fens in Cambridgeshire. Here the drains are managed by a Drainage Board. It does not matter how much water falls here it never ever floods this is despite being 10 metres below sea level in many places.Cost for cleaning out and maintaining the waterways could be reduced by putting the huge prison population to work rather then letting them languish in palatial surroundings. A double whammy in many respects!

roger churchfield
yes forget flood defences. ditch maintance and dredge the rivers like thay used to will surely stop or aleviate the problem

mr. sensible
Why has it come to this ? Each year we get floods and nobody seems to notice except those worst effected which is usuaally a few thousand . There complaints in the past do not seem to have got through to the government or the local councils . Now perhaps people will have a larger and louder voice . Dredge the rivers , irrigate the land by Law and keep barriers by their usage sites / appropriate places. It may cost a billion to fix which is around the price of another millenium dome . It makes sense to look after England after all if these floods are ten times worse than normal imagine ten times worse than this .Rubbish some may say but that was on the 19072007 then this happend 20072007. Overall the floods are getting bigger and bigger

Sarah Snape
apalling that having the forecast on Tuesday Wednesday that no attempts were made to install the flood barriers until Friday morning, as seen on the news Sunday night. They might not have stopped it all but surely they may have helped a bit. They should have been erected on Thursday. Yes the flash flooding in places like Little Comberton would have still happened but maybe ditches and drainage will be looked at properly.

Tony Ashmore
Yet again the road has flooded at Newlands nr Malvern This area always floods wether we have a heavey shower or rain fall that we have recently had. I travel this road every day and I would not think it would be too difficult to either raise the level of the road at this point or improve the drainage to cope with the water. Come on the Highways Agency and Malvern Town Council get your fingers out and get something done. It was done for Upton why not here

Holmes
So much building and concrete and land abused after 50 years of modern agriculture - there is no where for the water to go

steve.............worcester
Seems that the local council are wet behind the ears, and perhaps they expect us to experience a similar feeling ! by not preventing the obvious floods and deciding to simply "not bother" installing the barriers at their disposal.

kevin males
This photo is the bottom of our drive, all the good intentions in the world re building etc would not have stopped this. What everyone must realise is that 5 inches of rain in this timeframe is going to cause major problems, this has happened throughout the centuries, why does everyone think this is new? What is different is our expectation, I talked to lots of people who thought they could get to where they wanted to go and would not listen to sense, like you are not going to get there, turn around. this picture shows what the waether can do...anyone rembemr the winter of 63, where I lived then the local harbour froze.

linda hobson
what was the delay in putting up flood barriers,if we knew that we were going to have the amount of rain that we have had

Chris Sidwell
Congratulations BBC Hereford and Worcester for your outstanding broadcasting during the floods.This is what Public Service Broadcasting is all about- Well done.

Julie Vlachos
All i can say is that if it had not been for the kindness showen to us by the staff at pershore Civic Centre our family (including two children with special needs) would have been in deep trouble!Many many thanks goes to them all.

Suzanne Smith
Building on flood plains and even flood defenses result in pushing the problem elsewhere. The water has to go somewhere. If the flood plains were left as flood plains and not built on then it would minimise the effect of the floods.

Mark Lewis
Im currently 14 months away from Evesham! sat in a little shack in Cambodia when i see the extreme weather conditions hitting my home town!Cant believe the council have not learned from the last floods several years ago! Good effort team!Hope all is well with the people suffering as a result! Love you Evesham!

gareth john
why are the flood barriers not kept in upton or very nearby?? we heard on the news that they got stuck in transit on the M5. these defences should be kept nearby so that when they are needed they can be installed quickly to limit the amount of damage to homes and businesses.

Angela Tidmarsh
I live in Gt Comberton nr Pershore and yesterday it took me almost 2 hours to get home (in a 4x4). Apparently the roads around our village were the worst that had been seen in living memory. Having talked to many villagers, some of whom have lived here all their lives, they confirmed that they had "never seen floods like this" Without precedent, everyone I have spoken to have said that in years gone by, the drains and ditches surrounding the villages have been kept clear. Road verges are kept cut back therefore allowing water flowing from the fields and from the hill (Bredon) to drain away. This is no longer done - Why not? All this talk about flood defences and surely one of the most logical solutions is to keep ditches,drains and roadside verges clear! Is this such a difficult job to do. I walked along the road from the village towards Perhore durng the height of the floods yesterday evening, (to try and help motorists in distress) and by simply pulling some of the debris away from the drains and making a culvert into the verges so that water drained into the ditches at the side of the roads seemed to help a bit - so WHY IS THIS NOT DONE AS A MATTER OF COURSE? Apparently in years gone by it was done all the time, and NEVER had floods been experienced in this locality like we had yesterday. It really isnt rocket sicence, just common sense!!!

carolyn hickling
just want to say a great big thankyou for your coverage. my parents were trying to travel back to the midlands from wales and we were able to keep them posted while they were stuck on the m50. because of you we were able to get them back to wales to stay with us till it was safe to go home. thankyou!!

ian robinson
I understand that flood defences have not been put up in at least a couple of places because the "vehicles tyransporting them got trapped in traffic" Maybe I'm thick but why aren't the items next to where the need to be deployes?? It beggars belief they should be stored miles away

Tony Fuller
Training for drivers on how to ford water, i.e. keep in first gear, keep the engine rev's up and go slowly so you don't cause a wave of water to go through your car's engine compartment. This would have reduced the congestion and work for the police.

martin brain
these floods are getting larger each time they happen but why the main get out now is global warming etc , but what about my view over the past years houses have been built on flood plains which were there for the water to go to but now it cant , those houses have drains which go to the old pipe work which has not been updated 500 houses run in to a pipe now 1000 run to the same pipe so when rain comes again it cant handle it , due to money and cost cutting it is very rare you see a river beeing dredged like they did years ago , this means the water is getting higher so put these all to gether and you get floods in the houses as the water has to go some ware , i think the goverment and local water companies should be looking at these and not on how to stop the rivers flooding you wont stop water running were it wants to go so update what we got it might not stop all the floods but it will help many .

keith
Why don`t the council build a permanent barrior on Hylton Road in the centre of Worcester and be done with it?

Ceri Barber
If this was the first time that areas of Worcestershire had experienced flooding like this I could understand and sympathise with the lack of action from local Government in terms of flood warnings and preparation. However, as we all know - this is not the first time and it won't be the last. Sort it out!

Nigel Crisp
I have NEVER seen it like this even in the winter

john harold jones
I live in Salford Priors just over the county boundary, ex Harvington 2006. 20 hours without power makes one realise how much we take for granted the everyday services provided by the various utilities. Our thanks to the unknown workers who have restored normality to us. Our thoughts go out to all the residents of the flood damaged areas of Evesham, particularly the Staff and pupils of Vale of Evesham School.

Emma Manuel
I think this weather is dreadful for thi time of the year! They need to have made the drainage systems much better so that it could hold more water sufficiently!They also need 2 GET more flood barriers up!

James Bird
Why are there more flood defences available. Worcester has them and according to BBC News24 they haven't been put in place. What are they for if not to prevent the flooding? And Why dosen't Evesham have any. Infact why doesn't Stratford Have them I mean it's getting daft. They don't just save homes they save Money.

Alan Taylor
Yes i do think more could of been done.People were given enough warning but they were all caught out due to lack of planning to prevent any disruptions by the authorities.

lee booth
i think a lot more could of been done to prevent such disruption. after the recent flash floods the drainage systems could of been added to so as to lessen the severity of the floods.

samantha warden
ive was stuck in evesham after a 4 hour failed attempt to get home yesterday afternoon, it has taken me 5 hours to get home this morning,normally a 45 minute drive. My parents were stuck in moreton in marsh trying to get home, they made it to pershore and they are now stuck there. i dont think anything could have limited the damage and disruption as the rain just kept falling and the drains could cope with it. the local council need to look at the drainage systems and improve those, all emergency services have been fantastic, thank god they are there to help.

Daniel Essex
If people didn't buy houses on flood plains then they would stop building them there! Besides, practically the whole of the county has become a flood plain in these circumstances, so where do you draw the line?

Ruth-Malvern
Well my hubby has been trapped at North Piddle overnight with loads of others--kindly neighbours are making them tea and breakfast--he was trying to get home from Evesham.There was nothing anyone could have done to prevent the rainfall and it's effects this time but what about in the future--this will probably happen again.

Graham Cooke
Perhaps we should Re- introduce the parish lengthsmen/persons to provide regular maintainance to the drainage and ditches in rural areas, that way any rain falling early in an inundation such as we have just experienced has at least a chance of finding its way into watercourses and clearing rather than simply building up and stopping the nation functioning.If the water has somewhere to go it will go there naturally it will also stop naturally if it has nowhere to run.But that is called a floodplain and we build on those dont we.

simon
The weather is exceptional for this time of year and i feel sorry for all the disruption it has caused to people.The local councils do have a lot to answer for by letting houses be built on flood plains or not using the flood defenses they have at their disposal.Maybe though a thought should be given to dredging of the rivers in the county which does not seen to happen anymore.This would at least ease some of the flooding issue's that are occurring.

laura
i cant belive it i woke up at 4 today to hear the sounds of helocopters olny about a mile away in wyre piddle.all the feilds tend to get flooded near my house but iv neva seen it like this.it unbeliveable

q speers
I have done as much as i can to help stricken people in the floods, however i am now beconing increasingly frustrated with the attitude of the general public to the recent events. This is freak weather, and absolutely no-one can do anything about it, i feel for the thousands of people that are stuck and urge them all to stay positive. What concerns me is listening to those that have travelled this afternoon and evening in the vain and possibly ignorant hope that they will get to their destination. The ROADS ARE CLOSED, MOTORWAYS BLOCKED, THE HIGHAYS AGENCY ARE TRYING TO HELP THE SITUATION BY ALLOWING PEOPLE TO RETURN TO WHERE THAY HAVE COME FROM, LETS FACE IT THEY ARE NOT GOING TO GET ANYWHERE GOING SOUTH - SO PLEASE STOP MOANING, THEY ARE TRYING TO HELP. By the way, i do not work for them, just trying to get through to everyone!

jenny graur
i live in newnham bridge tenbury wells, i have a 9month old daughter, and cant get anywhere. all roads around us are closed. i just cant believe this is happening again. lets pray for some sun...

Everil Matthews
Years ago rivers were dredged regularly. I haven't seen a dredger in operation for over 25 years or more. Dredging served two purposes, to clear the build up of debris and silt in the rivers and also to build up the river banks with the said debris. If this is not being done now..........why?? Surely it would help? Also the vacuum drain clearers......are they man enough for the job? They can probably suck up loose wet stuff but can they clear dried, ingrained muck?

Nick & Claire
This is July!!!!!!!! Any adverse weather conditions and this country grinds to a halt. 5cm of snow is enough to effect the entire motorway network. I understand that we have seen 24hrs of rain but our drains cannot cope. We have droughts in the summer when we have a week of sunshine. The end is Nigh! This is Mother Nature at her worst. I feel sorry for the people that are stuck in this.

Phoebe & Jessie From Worcester
We Are Flooded In...The A38 Through Severn Stoke Is Completely Flooded And The Top Of The Drive Is Like A Waterfall!! I Agree With All The Other Comments But It Is Quite Exciting...But i Know That It Is Not For Some People And The Counsil is A Shambles Right Now. I Believe The Emergency Services Are Doing Everything They Can To Ensure They Are Helping The People Most In Need! The 999 Services Are Giving There upmost Priority To Those in Dia Need!!

alan speers
i have noticed over the years the lack of the dredger on the river severn, surely over these few years silt and debris has built up making the severn a shallower water course. this meaning that the severn cant hold as much water as it used to. also i think that more should be done to make farmers and landowner maintain there ditchs and gulleys, this helping the water follow it proper course instead of folowing our road network.

Mike Miles (Hereford)
You could argue that the current flood problems are in a way another kind of indirect tax. The local authorities do not carry out anything like the maintenance they should on roads, drainage, clearing culverts etc. saving money on their workforce. It is then left to the individual to sort out the resulting problem, insurance rates will then subsequently go up costing us all more ..and it goes on and on.We live in a rural area and are being taxed for having a 4x4. I would not have been able to shop and get food today if I did not have a 4x4.

leah from droitwich
droitwich cannal has flooded in vines park and is now about 9 ft more than normail covered the new picnic boat i think and people down vines lane have been evicuated the road down by the high school bus bay is now a river and the cross roads down by enter the game and queen street is bad and as normail the flood defences out side rajs restaurant and take away has flooded

mike
I was turned around by a policeman whilst heading into Bredon ...head for "higher ground" he told me.." ok Noah " I replied ..brightened up my journey home even though took 4-30hrs instead of usual 30mins !! had to leave car 3 miles away and walk through floods too !!

A. Non
Climate Change scenarios predict that as ice caps melt the sea will warm resulting in incresed rainfall with an increased intensity. With scientists witnessing the arctic and greenland ice caps melting at an alarming rate people are now witnessing these predictions not in 50 years when they can let their kids deal with it but now. Yet many wish to do absolutely nothing or very little to combat the predicted climate change they continue to drive for short shopping trips, consume large amounts of energy, they dont recycle or compost, they pave their gardens over and buy the houses developed on flood plains. Yet the staff who work in organisations such as the Local authorities, the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust and The Duckworth Trust work hard to educate and inform people who continue to ignore the warning signs but who then point the accusing finger at those who have tried to help them.

Simon Ham
With the greatest respect to those putting forward the flood plain & construction argument, it is very inaccurate. Building of any type on flood plains is practically impossible. Any which does take place must be rigorously scrutinsed with regards locatation, storm water handling and flood potential. The vast quantities of water we are seeing are less to do with wicked builders building on deltas and more to do with what we already have and poor maintenance. Our drainage systems are painfully outdated [Victorian] and there is far less free draining land in our built up areas now. The latest flood in Tenbury appeared to be principally down to drains still silted up from the previous flood. That could have been avoided. There are far larger issues than local government planning policy. This could just be a freak spell of a couple of bad years? I live in hope!

Don Wills
The ditches are never maintained as they were before cost cutting also the rivers not dredged if they were the water would flow more freely out to sea

Margaret Craner
It is possible that if building had not been allowed on flood plains and areas needed for drainage of surface water, some of the problems would have been avoided. Some of the water, at least, would have had somewhere to go. Why are builders still putting houses on flood plains? Why is it that councils allow this, instead of taking a more responsible attitude.

Donna ...Childswickham
i think we're looking at exceptional circumstances...flood barriers aren't enough.whole new ways of planning settlemnts wil have to be thought of..massive drainage ditches dug.buildings on higher ground.STOP BUILDING IN THE FLOODPLAINS!!!!planning authorities need to act now to stop most buildings in floodplains...some peoples land will become worthless but thats it...developers can no longer make hugE profits on this type of land.i don't think common road football ground in evesham should have been given permission for housing.the Environment agency need to raise their standards+not allow building in alot of the flodplain.i feel really sorry for people with modern homes nxt to river in evesham..the victorian housing is set back from the river so why did we allow recent housing right nxt to the river????????????eg on the rd that leaves port st by the cinema nr the tax office.i would be really angry if i had bought a new home there...the authorities are meant to act responsibly +they haven't.

Simon
I find it absolutly ludicrous that Worceter council install flood barriers on Hylton Road and they dont put them up when they are needed due to the disruption to traffic it would cause.

Sharron Skelton
I dont know about limiting damage but what I do know is that the emergency services have been fantastic and if it wasnt for them my parents would have been well and truely stranded. Could you thank them on behalf of all of us who have so needed them these last few days.

robert kilminster
i think they could have limited the damaged caused by using the flood barriers . these where issued for a reason, so why didn't they use them . they are not thinkng of the people with things to do.