Flood signs to be discussed
The Norfolk flood sirens debate will get an airing at the Norfolk County Council cabinet meeting today when members will be asked to extend the life of the sirens.
The Norfolk flood sirens debate will get an airing at the Norfolk County Council cabinet meeting today when members will be asked to extend the life of the sirens.
Exactly when the sirens will be switched off remains unclear, with a paper due to come to a future meeting of cabinet, but not before March 1 - when a final decision may or may not be made.
That decision is complicated by the offer of parish councils taking on ownership of the sirens.
But today, leading sirens campaigner Marie Strong, a Lib Dem county councillor, will ask the Conservative cabinet to hold on to the sirens until they have fought the Environment Agency and urged
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them to introduce new modern
sirens which can both warn of impending flooding and be used for evacuation.
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The current sirens are capable of being used only for evacuation, although as it stands both the Environment Agency and the police have said they will not be used because they are unfit for purpose.
Dr Strong will ask cabinet members to change their minds in the context of the alternative system provided by the Environment Agency, the phone- based floodline warnings direct, being inadequate.
“The floodline warnings direct has little or no confidence along the coast and the county council administration has itself accepted its inadequacies,” said Dr Strong.
“We all know the dichotomy of warning and evacuation. But until, if ever, the EA provide an effective system of warning, parishes see the sirens as a vital part of emergency protocol.”
