Following the article by Philip Grant LINK on the Welsh Harp dam risk in the light of the Whaly Bridge incident, Brent Council has written to him with the following statement:
The council work with the Environment Agency directly as part of both the Brent Resilience Forum and the London Resilience Forum. To assure you, responses to a breach, or potential breach, of a reservoir form elements of the risk registers for both organisations. The Brent Resilience Forum has a specific multi-agency flood plan in place, including for a breach of Welsh Harp Reservoir. A specific emergency planning training exercise on a flood breach is also hoped to be conducted at some point next year.
As you may be aware, the Canal and River Trust rather than the council is the reservoir operator at the Brent Reservoir and owns the watercourse there. We have recently been in further contact with the Trust since the events at Whaley Bridge and they re-iterated the inspections and procedures that they have in place to ensure the safe management and maintenance of the reservoir. You may wish to contact them directly in relation to this matter for your information.
I am aware that you may place this response in the public domain so I thought it would also be useful to highlight what measures residents can take to prepare for any flood risk:
· There is information available on the council’s website here:
https://www.brent.gov.uk/emergencies/severe-weather/flooding/
· Residents can check the different types of flood risk for your property via the Environment Agency website: here
https://flood-warning-information.service.gov.uk/long-term-flood-risk
· Residents can also use this site to sign up for specific flood warnings: here
https://www.gov.uk/sign-up-for-flood-warnings
I hope this provides re-assurance that the council has multi-agency plans in place for any instances of flooding in the borough, along with a Flood Management Strategy on our website sent to you previously.