A BISHOP'S Stortford councillor has slammed the district council's flood alleviation efforts as "totally unacceptable" in the wake of the flooding which hit the town on Monday.

East Herts district councillor Andy Graham said: "At the back of The Causeway car park, Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury (in Bishop's Stortford) it really is quite bad. This is the second time this has happened in recent times. The council has not been prepared, it needs sandbags to be available."

Mr Graham is now calling on the council to combat the town's flooding problem.

He said: "This is simply not good enough. We shall be asking the question why the council did not prepare for these floods. We should have learnt our lesson last time.

"I think a lot of this could have been avoided, as we should have known from last year. We knew it was going to happen again, and we have been caught out."

An East Herts District Council spokesman said: "We do have a sandbag store at the council, and the Environment Agency has been giving out leaflets at known troublespots with the emphasis on people to get their own sandbags.

"We're not under a set obligation to provide sandbags to people, but in an emergency we, as a council, do assist people as much as we can.

"We've delivered 2,000 sandbags today (Monday) to people in the Bishop's Stortford area, and another 2,000 have been ordered."

For information on flood prevention, ring the Environment Agency's Floodline on 0845 9881188.

October 24, 2001 8:28