Morpeth Herald

Council targets hit by flood backwash

Flooding at High Stanners. Picture: DEAN FAIL
Flooding at High Stanners. Picture: DEAN FAIL
 
 

Published Date: 09 October 2008

By ANNA SMITH
 
 
THE Morpeth flood has dealt a major blow to Council targets, knocking several off course.
A number of 'promises' made by Castle Morpeth Council this year will fall by the wayside as a direct result of the September 6 events, while others may suffer as recovery operations take priority.

Councillors have admitted that pledges to reduce the amount of waste collected, lower the level sent to landfill and increase recycling will not be delivered due to the mountain of debris from flood-hit homes.

About 300 skip-loads of waste have been taken away and the clean-up is far from over.

Council Leader Peter Jackson said: "We won't be able to hit the waste targets as a direct result of the flood.

"Quite a lot of the damaged property that people have cleared out of houses has to go straight to landfill because it has been contaminated to such an extent.

"The waste collection tonnage has gone up quite dramatically because of the skips in the streets of Morpeth. That is the reason we can't meet these targets.

"It is a shame to miss out on the recycling rate of 40 percent because we were there before the flood situation.

"It is just the flood that has caused a drop in that."

Council officers are trying to obtain waste figures before the flood to show that progress was on track and Coun Alan Sambrook assured residents that work is taking place to recycle as much of the damaged goods as possible.

Another target to suffer is a promise to increase use of the Borough's leisure centres as flood damage has closed the Riverside facility in Morpeth.

And the level of Borough resources pledged to the new unitary council for Northumberland could fall due to the cost of flood emergency and recovery operations.

Plans to refurbish the Buttermarket in Morpeth Town Hall could be delayed as the building was being used as a flood information point, while clean-up schedules across the Borough, such as road sweeping, may fall behind as the Morpeth recovery takes priority.

Community clean-up events are still on track, but the programme will now be directed solely at areas affected by flooding.

And the Council is still unsure if the deluge will affect its promise to reduce carbon emissions as there will be an increase in transport and landfill gases from the incident, but a reduction in other areas, such as leisure centre emissions.

"We have had a very close look at our promises to see what we can actually deliver and what we can put our hands up to and say realistically we can't achieve this," said Coun Jackson.

"We are going to deliver 80 to 90 percent of what we promised, but there are a few promises that we might not be able to achieve.

The full article contains 478 words and appears in Morpeth Herald newspaper.
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