'How long until we see scenes like Valencia, where hundreds died?’ Activist reacts to extreme Northampton flooding

Extreme flooding from Storm Bert, which struck overnight on Sunday, wreaked havoc across the county.

According to the Environment Agency, many residents’ homes were flooded, cars were stranded and abandoned, and 1,000 people were evacuated from Billing Aquadrome. Similar events occurred in January, February and September when flooding hit.

Yesterday, the EA declared the flooding to be even more severe than the infamous floods of 1998.

Marly Lyman, an environmental activist from Northampton, has spoken out following the chaos, urging people to “act like it truly is an emergency.”

He said: “For many in Northampton, this is the second time severe flooding has affected them in as many months. Statistically, this is likely to become more and more frequent as global temperature rises create more extreme weather events.

“Does our local council need to be more considerate of planning permissions when building on floodplains? Yes.

“Does there need to be drastic investment into flood defences and drainage clearing? Absolutely.

“But is this an issue of climate change driven largely by the use of fossil fuels? Undeniably, according to science.

“While there are two Northampton men, Daniel Shaw and Larch Maxey, sitting in prison for their involvement in nonviolent protest precisely to try and pressure the government into preventing this type of devastation to people’s lives, the disruption caused by not acting on climate change is becoming more and more apparent.

“How long until we see scenes similar to those in Valencia, where hundreds died? Or Pakistan, where millions lost their homes?

“We’re past the point of a silver bullet solution—it is going to require everything, everywhere, all at once to protect lives. This is, after all, a Climate Emergency as declared by Northamptonshire councils in 2019. Perhaps we should all act like it truly is an emergency, because the science shows that to be the case.”

WNC has been contacted for comment.

Speaking to Chronicle and Echo yesterday, the council’s chief executive Anna Earnshaw said: “Our thoughts are with those affected. It’s really devastating and really difficult. What I can say is, across the county, we’re doing lots of work to make sure gullies are cleaned and drains are unblocked. We’ve got 80 people out working on that at the moment, and about 40 other people doing other things like getting rid of trees. We’re doing everything we can, and we’re doing it in priority order to make sure people are safe ahead of whatever happens with the weather later this week.”

As we move further into winter, Ms Earnshaw was asked what’s in place in the likely event this will happen again. She said: “Our response is always the same in the sense that we have teams set up, mechanisms working with our blue light partners, and other agencies where, the first time we get a warning, we kick into action. We were already in planning over the weekend ready, so we had evacuation centres set up very early this morning so that we’d be ready to go quite quickly. We’ll continue to do what we need to do until we have some longer-term solutions in place.”