Fifty-seven residents from Earl St, Duke, St and Marlborough Court have written to the Leader of Oxfordshire County Council calling for construction work on the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme to begin urgently. They are frustrated that the scheme has been 10 years in design but there is still no firm date for when construction will start. These streets are some of the most vulnerable in Oxford and this January many residents relived the nightmare of past floods.

The letter, organsied by Earl St resident Dr Sebastiaan van Schaik, says:

Re: floods in West Oxford and the urgency of the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme 

Dear Cllr Leffman,

I’m writing to you on behalf of 57 residents of Earl Street, Duke Street, and Marlborough Court in West Oxford. As I’m sure you are aware, West Oxford and the Abingdon Road areas were severely affected by the floods in early January. We’re grateful to the people from the EA and ODS who worked 24/7 to redirect water and reduce damage to the best of their abilities. Most floors have now dried, pumps are gone, and the electricity is back on, but the streets are still littered with sewage and road surfaces remain in urgent need of repair. 

Needless to say, these floods come at a huge emotional and financial cost. For some of us, these were the first or most serious floods we’ve experienced; others still remember the trail of destruction left by the water back in 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2014. On top of that, the impact on local businesses is substantial, at a time many are already struggling. And all of us know: these floods could have been prevented. 

In 2015, the Environment Agency first consulted with local residents and organisations on draft designs of Oxford’s Flood Alleviation Scheme (OFAS). Of all the different options to reduce flood risks, the proposed natural channel has been shown by detailed modelling to be the most effective, and residents cannot wait for the work to commence. With this channel, our streets and homes wouldn’t have flooded. But instead, 10 years on from the 2014 floods, not a single spade has touched soil. And we all know that climate change will only result in more frequent and more severe floods. We need action now.

It is profoundly disappointing that we are still waiting for work to start. And to West Oxford residents, there is a deep added irony: badly planned railway works have cut us off from the city we live in. Meanwhile, the Botley Interchange can apparently be closed at the drop of a hat, effectively cutting us off from both sides. Private companies like Thames Water are allowed to flood our streets with sewage, and are permitted to maintain a semi-permanent bike lane closure on Osney Bridge. And big, tall biotech labs can be designed, approved, and built in the area within only a few years.

Yet our local and central governments and agencies are somehow unable to commence work on a carefully-designed natural flood channel through empty grassland, in order to provide West Oxford residents with the most basic of comforts: a safe and dry home. We all understand the need for due diligence, careful planning application processes, and procedures around compulsory purchase orders, but at the current rate it is likely that some of us will not live to see the completion of this scheme. We feel deeply let down.

Therefore, on behalf of 57 residents of our streets, I urge you and the County Council you lead to please collaborate closely with central government and the Environment Agency in order to cut red tape and expedite the building of the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme. 

At the same time, I urge our local City Councillors Pressel and Muddiman (both CC) to work with the County Council and EA to have the new flood channel completed as soon as possible. There are local elections coming up in 2024 (City) and 2025 (County), and it should not come as a surprise to anyone that this topic is high on the list of concerns of local residents.

Dr van Schaik was interviewed on BBC Radio Oxford on Monday 5 Feb, and the story was also picked up by the Oxford Mail, and the Oxford Clarion.