Nusrat Ghani, MP for Wealden, has recently met with representatives from Hellingly Parish Council, Wealden District Council and East Sussex County Council including Highways to hold Southern Water to account over their ongoing failures to address and prevent issues with flooding in Hellingly.
Since January this year, Nusrat has been intensely involved in a series of meetings with local authorities and Southern Water representatives to address the ongoing issues with flooding and sewage overspills that Hellingly residents experience during periods of heavy rainfall. This autumn’s wet weather has caused the issues to reoccur and given the severity of the incidents, this meeting presented an opportunity to discuss plans and priorities for upgrading the infrastructure including the capacity of the pumping station.
Southern Water advised that a Connectivity Study of several hundred households in Hellingly has been conducted earlier in the year. Results are currently being analysed and expected to be presented to all stakeholders at a further meeting in the new year.
Nusrat Ghani said: “It is regrettable that there has been little progress since the major incident in January to address the causes of the flooding and sewage overspills. This is a multi-agency issue, and I am appalled that the Environment Agency yet again failed to attend this meeting and answer questions about water overspill. Some progress made by Southern Water with regards to the connectivity study is welcome, but it is clear that more needs to be done to address the issue and we need Southern Water to do better and prioritise Hellingly for infrastructure upgrades. I would like to thank Hellingly Parish Council representatives Jenny Hoodless and Cllr David White for their tireless work on the matter and I will continue working with them to push for better performance from Southern Water.”
