This winter has seen yet more flooding across Oxfordshire, and across

my constituency.

Many in our community will remember the traumatic experience of 2007, when hundreds of homes and many businesses flooded after the River Ock burst its banks.

Luckily, only a handful of properties in our area were flooded this time.

But we have to be prepared. Since I was elected in 2017, I’ve been lobbying the Government to make a flood prevention scheme in Abingdon happen, and for improvements to be made to the Oxford scheme.

Sadly, planning ahead and assuaging the fears of residents in our area doesn’t seem to be the priority for this Government. When I held a debate on flooding in our area in the Commons in 2019, the Minister promised to meet me. She never did, despite emails and calls.

We are in the midst of a health emergency, but if we don’t sort flooding defences out in Abingdon we’re only going to face bigger problems at some point in the future.

New housing being built in Abingdon, for instance, will only increase the risk of homes being flooded. Infrastructure and protection must come first.

The same is true in South Hinksey, where temporary flood barriers had to be used.

The same applies in Yarnton, which was flooded this Christmas, where the Cherwell Local Plan will build homes on land that floods regularly, including in late 2019.

And let’s not forget the climate emergency. Flooding is only going to get worse in the coming years, and we need to plan for that.

Local people are not being listened to on this. There was no public consultation on whether the Abingdon Flood Alleviation Scheme should go ahead. Constituents wrote to me to say they felt ignored and overlooked.

And, in the grand scheme of things, approximately £10 million for a scheme in Abingdon is a very small amount of funding needed compared to elsewhere. With Local Plans in place that will deliver thousands of additional houses, we need to be investing to keep those homes safe. Given that the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway project has been thankfully ‘paused’, wouldn’t that money be much better spent keeping current and future houses safe from flooding?

That’s why I have now written again, urgently, to the Flooding Minister and the Environment Agency, calling for them to tell residents in Abingdon and elsewhere in our community if funding can now be found, and how our local councils and residents groups can best access it. And if funding won’t be found, why not?

Flooding is about the human cost, not just the economic cost. We must remember that.

And I will continue to work locally and in Westminster until the people of Abingdon, Yarnton, Oxford and elsewhere have the safety and assurance they need and deserve.