Reports into the winter flooding that hit Rutland in recent years are nearing completion.

At last night's (May 22) full Rutland County Council meeting, cabinet member for environment, Christine Wise (Lib Dem) said the section 19 reports, which local authorities must complete after flooding incidents were moving on and almost complete.

Areas of the county were badly affected when Storm Babet hit in October 2023 and when Storm Henk arrived three months later in January 2024. Rutland also suffered flooding this January.

Rutland and Stamford MP Alicia Kearns (Con) has been critical of the speed the authority has undertaken the reports and at the meeting Cllr Wise said had not 'pushed it under the carpet' but had been working on the final reports.

Last month flood officer Maggie Pearson joined the council.

Cllr Wise said: "Section 19 is progressing and nearing completion, our new flood officer is in post and is working with early drafts of the section 19 to start on some of the early recommendations, which I think we will all be grateful for. We do not want to wait until the final publication. 

"The strategy was refreshed immediately after our two bad incidents and is being rewritten, much of that drawing on the section 19 report.

"In recent flooding incidents some of the new processes were in action – some of those were old processes which were just re-rehearsed and made a bit firmer than they had previously been – but there were clear improvements, although I think on assessment, it's still not perfect.

"I hope to bring a further report to you once we have the final section 19 final copy."

The authority said this week it is working to develop a new flood resilience programme. Local parishes across the county have also been drawing up their own emergency flood plans and appointing voluntary flood wardens.

The council's scrutiny committee undertook a flood evidence panel last year and made a series of recommendations including the emergency response is streamlined, policies are regularly reviewed and that there is a clear structure of prevention roles.