View All Articles 26 - Flooding Advice and Support Update 17/10/2024

Flooding Advice and Support Update 17/10/2024

17th of October, 2024

As you would expect, the county council's Highways teams, the Environment Agency and United Utilities are still responding to reports of flooding around Lancashire from yesterday's extreme rainfall.

Advice when reporting as follows:

Water problems in properties

  1. If you currently have flood water in your homes or business premises, you should quickly switch off any electrical appliances at basement & ground floor level, and move  most valuable belongings off the floor to minimise the risk of damage, not forgetting family photos & heirlooms. You will get advice from your buildings & contents insurers about what to do next. If you don’t have insurance, you are best advised to contact your local district or city council for help with cleaning up.
  2. If anyone has had foul water (dirty water from sewers) coming into your property, you should report it to your local water company (Unitied Utilities for most of us), which may be able to help with cleaning and will certainly want to investigate any possible failings in their networks. United Utilities covers most of Lancashire with Yorkshire Water providing services in parts of East Lancashire. Telephone numbers are: United Utilities plc: 0345-672-3723 Yorkshire Water plc: 0345-124-2424

 

Highways/Roads

  1. Any long-lasting ponding of water in the road should be reported to LCC Highways for investigation and appropriate repairs. If this is or may be connected to a blocked gully, it can be reported as a highway fault through our website http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/roads-parking-and-travel-report-it/ . If it is anything more complicated than that, we advise you either telephone on 0300-123-6780 during normal working hours or send the information in an email any time to : [email protected] including as much detail as possible.
  2. The Lead Local Flood Authority – represented by the Flood Risk Management team – need to know about all flooding events, especially where it has come into private property, so that they can investigate responsibly and identify whether there may be a case for grant funding to help with long-term improvements to an area. 'Private property' includes homes, gardens & garages, farms/fields and business premises. Please report to us by telephone on 0300-123-6780 during normal working hours or by email any time to : [email protected] with as much detail as possible. If we need to share the information with other drainage authorities for a full investigation, we will do so under carefully controlled data protection processes. We will not pass the information on to any insurance companies, trades companies, newspapers, private individuals or other people/organisations outside the flood risk management authorities. If the issues have already been reported to another drainage authority (for example the Environment Agency, the district/city council or United Utilities), it doesn’t need reporting again to us because of the data-sharing arrangements.
  3. If anyone wants advice on how to manage their risks of future flooding, they should first contact their local Flood Action Group or Community Resilience Group where there is one. They can also find advice on the North West's dedicated flood advice website: https://thefloodhub.co.uk/ . If these options don’t help someone's particular situation, they are welcome to contact the Flood Risk Management team for advice by emailing or telephoning as above & leaving their contact details.

If there are any  groups that would like to register their contact details with the Flood Risk Management team, please drop the team an email [email protected], they encourage you to let them know.