Our Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE, tries to navigate an error-strewn strategy document that has taken 10 years to draft

Flooded: the council has a legal duty to consult on its flooding ‘strategy’

Another day, another facile survey issued by Croydon Council, this time asking residents for their views on its “strategy” for flooding.

Trouble is, the online survey has been cobbled together so badly, anyone going to the bother of attempting to provide informed responses is thwarted because someone at the council forgot to add in the links to key documents and proposals.

There could be a reason for this: a decade after serious flooding damaged hundreds of properties in and around Kenley and Purley, causing widespread disruption for weeks that required 24/7 intervention from the emergency services and even saw the Army called in, Croydon Council does not appear to have a properly completed strategy at all.

This has come to light after the council issued a press release last week asking the public to take part in a (legally required) survey of its flood risk planning documents.

But residents who have gone to the time and trouble of trying to answer the council’s survey and found themselves caught in a Croydon online wormhole, confronted by more blanks than an edition of Blankety Blank.

Half-arsed and half-finished: the council document does exist…

Under “Section 2 – objectives and measures for managing flood risk in Croydon”, the council survey says, “This section covers the proposed objectives and measures developed to manage flood risk within the borough.

“Please read Section 2 before answering the following questions.” Fair enough, any reasonably minded Council Tax-payer might think.

This is followed by: “More information about the proposed objectives and measures is available in the full strategy document [link].”

But there is no link to the full strategy document.

A two-minute-long investigation by Inside Croydon (we Googled “Croydon Council flooding full strategy document”) uncovered that such a document does exist.

Titled: “Local Flood Risk Management Strategy: 2023-2028” a second, draft version is locatable on the council website, having been written nine months ago, in September 2022. You can see the document for yourself by clicking here.

But don’t get too excited…

We cannot be certain that this is the document that the council wants to associate with its very important survey, because even at 40 pages, “Draft 2” is incomplete and badly written.

Unchecked: did someone forget to write the foreword?

Where there’s supposed to be a foreword, an introduction to the strategy, written by a senior councillor, perhaps the cabinet member responsible, or even piss-poor Perry, the council’s elected Mayor, there’s just a heavily asterisked note that says, “Foreword *to be written by Croydon Council*”.

On the contents page, there’s a whole series of errors that appear to have been flagged up by the document’s software.

And then there’s the case studies which amount to nothing more than statements of the bleedin’ obvious.

For a flood event case study about the flooding of the River Wandle, the report has used a picture showing the underpass at Purley Cross under several feet of water in August 2015. The River Wandle flows north-westwards, from South Croydon, without going anywhere near Purley.

The council report then tells us, “During this event, the River Wandle was reported to have burst its banks at multiple locations downstream, in Sutton. Despite not being within the area of Croydon, this indicates that the River Wandle was flowing at high levels and that this watercourse is capable of bursting its banks.” No Shit, Sherlock!

The poorly proofed document is strewn with errors: “Whilst the Environment Agency are [we might quibble with the poor grammar here] responsible for the management of main rivers, Croydon Council… are [ditto] responsible for the management of ordinary watercourses.”

And then, in bold print so that no one could really miss seeing it: “Error! Reference source not found.”

There’s several more of these errors on the following pages.

Then, on page 38, there’s “Appendix C – Action plan”.

Which is blank.

“Appendix E – Croydon flood risk maps” is also blank. Which is a bit of a let down.

So this Google-able council document is clearly only a work in progress.

Which is a shame, because for thousands of residents in the south of the borough, many of whom will remember the weeks of flooding they had to endure in early 2014, this is a very important issue and one which they might reasonably expect, nearly a decade later, their local council to have some kind of contingency plan in place.

If Croydon Council does have such a plan, they have a funny way of sharing it.

The council’s new flooding strategy survey has other blank links, too. Question 19 says, “How strongly do you agree or disagree with the action plan that details how we will monitor the progress of the objectives? {link to appendix C}”. There is no link. Although as we have established from the draft report, there is no action plan either…

There’s an earlier question in the survey which might draw some interesting answers from residents: “8: How strongly do you agree or disagree that it is clear what Croydon Council’s role is in flood risk management for the borough?”

In the announcement of the survey from the propaganda bunker in Fisher’s Folly, they say,
“The council has a duty to plan for how it will work with other agencies and organisations to reduce the risk of flooding.” So this is a report that is required by law.

“The council would especially like to hear from those who may be at higher risk of flooding,” it says.

“Feedback received through the survey will help update the strategy before it goes to cabinet for approval later this year.” Who knows, they might manage to fill in all the blank pages by then.

“We’ve experienced flooding in parts of our borough before,” is a quote attributed to that human dynamo, Jason Perry.

“It’s really important that all agencies in Croydon are working together to manage any risk, and that we are properly prepared for any emergencies,” the £82,000 per year part-time Mayor is supposed to have said.

Perhaps next time, Piss-poor Perry might prepare himself for such press release quotes by reading the council report first, or even undertaking the survey itself, just to check that the links are all where they are meant to be.

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