important community news and information about the current situation in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
It’s amazing that a temporary building can look this good, air conditioning, wheelchair access, showers and changing facilities etc. Things are coming along well.
The rest of our leisure facilities face a long haul back to normal, but a good opportunity to make improvements along the way. Everyone will remember that photo of the flooded entrance, now a hive of building activity.
The majority of Gloucestershire County Council’s schools will be opening as normal for the beginning of term next week, despite many having suffered damage during the floods.
However, a number of schools, youth centres, children’s centres and other facilities will still be dealing with the impact of last month’s flooding.
Continue reading ‘Across the county, schools will open as normal’
The Gloucestershire flood relief fund website is a great success, with the fund total now standing at £644,399. Take a look at the website for the latest news on fund raising events across the county.
Trading standards officers teamed up with the police, customs and excise and benefit fraud officers to look out for rogue traders arriving in the county yesterday, 15th August.
Since the floods officers from Gloucestershire county council trading standards service have been visiting flood victims to warn of the problems that can be caused by rogue traders carrying out repair work on people’s homes.
This approach appears to have paid off as trading standards officers report that no new complaints have been received since the visits began, and consumers have been sending doorstep sellers on their way.
Communities secretary Hazel Blears has announced that 36 local authorities affected by the July floods will receive a share of £6.2m of government funding to help the people in their communities in the greatest need.
This is great news for Cheltenham and our neighbours, Gloucester and Tewkesbury.
You can read the full article on the communities.gov.uk website.
The Gloucestershire flood relief fund, which was formed a little over a week ago to help victims of the July 2007 floods in Gloucestershire, has launched a fund raising website at www.glosfloodrelief.org
Continue reading ‘Gloucestershire flood relief fund website launched’
The Gloucestershire flood relief fund is urging households affected by the floods to send in their applications for hardship grants by Friday 24th August. So far, 300 applications have already been received from the 5,000 households affected throughout the county. The charity, which was only set up eight days ago, is keen to help flood victims as quickly as it can.
No, we couldn’t believe it either, but apparently Severn Trent can’t find all the bowsers that were distributed during the crisis. If you’ve spotted one hanging around a street corner, please let them know. Follow the link above for all the contact details.
Following a survey completed by council workers across the county rough totals for the number of households affected by the floods are as follows:
The total number of houses in the county that were flooded (that we know of) currently stands at 5350, with leftover questionaires being completed this week. There is clearly a lot of work still to be done.
If your home was flooded and you were out when we called you should have been left a form to identify who you are and the extent of the damage. Can you please return this as soon as possible to:
If you have a completed flood fund application form then please send this to:
A big thanks to all the surveyors who travelled around the county visiting homes and listening to residents’ needs.
If you want to help those recovering from the effects of the flood, please check out our new how to help page.
Trading standards officers are out today talking to residents the areas of Cheltenham that were affected by the floods. Read the advice from trading standards in our earlier post.
Lots of people need a helping hand, some need help with flood fund applications and everyone has a story to tell. Right now we have teams of surveyors auditing flood damaged properties in Cheltenham and Tewkesbury.
The government has money to give, but we need to provide a comprehensive list of those affected so that we can put forward our case for that funding. The time scale for all of this is very tight, so our teams are working hard to get the information together. So far we have visited and identified over 1000 properties.
Although the events in July have slipped out of the news, for many people returning back to normality will be a long and distressing road that could take up to a year.
Here are a group of people doing a fantastic job.
Tony Wray, Severn Trent Water’s managing director:
We at Severn Trent recognise that many communities in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire have suffered significantly during this period. Therefore we have decided to make available up to £3.5 million to support those communities in recovering from this incident…
Severn Trent will be working with the local authorities to determine how to make best use of this money. We believe that a contribution such as this will be of long term benefit to all in the community.
The South West of England regional development agency is making available up to £2m as an emergency fund to help support those businesses hit most severely by the floods.
The scheme aims to assist in rapid business recovery by providing assistance for business advice and physical losses as a direct consequence of the recent floods in the South West, principally Gloucestershire.
The flood waters may have gone, the tap water may be almost back to normal, we’ve all come through the other side. Surprisingly, the one thing we do not have is a definitive list of all the properties affected by the flood. Some had a trickle inside, some were completely gutted, it’s important that we know who was affected. We have a list of all the calls we received for advice and sandbags – but it is not comprehensive.
If your property was damaged, it would be very helpful if you could email us, giving the address of the property, your name, and contact details including a daytime telephone number and forwarding address (if appropriate). We will contact you and arrange to visit you at the flood-damaged property.
BBC Gloucestershire news
Cheltenham Borough Council flood updates 
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