Rachel Gilmour

Rachel Gilmour

Liberal Democrat — Tiverton and Minehead

Speaking in the House of Commons on 27 January 2025

Debate

Storm Éowyn

Contribution

We have had terrible flooding in my constituency because of Storm Éowyn. As I drove through my home village of Bampton yesterday, I saw an elderly resident—Richard Hutter—desperately trying to pull up the drain so that the water could be taken from the high street. The wall between Withycombe and Rodhuish has fallen into the stream, so there is water all over the roads. At Exebridge, where the silt has not been taken out from under the bridges for years, there is flooding again—for probably the 10th time. Nearly a decade of underfunding at the hands of the Conservative Administration, which oversaw a 45% cut in the local government settlement, has exacerbated subsidence, erosion and poor road conditions. That has had dangerous consequences, as we have witnessed over the past few days. I ask this question more in hope than in expectation: will the Government revise the funding mechanisms for local government to ensure that villages such as those in Tiverton and Minehead are better protected from future adverse weather?

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