Dear Supporters,

Lots of Flooding around the Wirral today - TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOS AND VIDEOS!!! make sure you record the flooded fields and roads- soon the Housing Developers will be telling you that they have done Flood Risk Assessments and there are no flooding issues.

Please post your photos and videos to our facebook page (Defend Wirrals Green Spaces)  to our page and send them to your MP and ask them if they still support the Governments plans to require the Wirral to build an extra 28000 houses (a population increase of 60,000 / 20%)

The fields are saturated and are acting as a sponge, holding back as much water as possible, releasing the water slowly. The flooding would be much worse if those fields were concreted over and water ran off much quicker in to the water courses. Our water courses are at capacity, they can not cope with any more concreted areas draining in to them.

We see lots of people on social media complaining that the flooding is caused because the Council are not maintaining the gullies or the rivers havent been desilted by the Environment Agency. But consider this....have you ever noticed that it is the gullies in the low spots next to the river courses that are usually "blocked "? Its more likely that those drains are surcharged and backing up because they physically can not drain in to the water course which is full to capacity.

Also consider that the Environment Agency have a deliberate policy of allowing some rivers to desilt to PREVENT flooding of PROPERTIES. Desilting rivers actually allows flood water to flow faster, and quicker to downstream towns and villages causing flooding to be worse. The flood risk management policy of deliberately holding back the water and allowing fields to be flooded actually reduces the impact of flooding on downstream properties. If we concrete over those fields then flooding to properties will increase.

Whilst some maintenance is lacking, and flooding can be caused for many complex reasons, these increasing floods are very much caused by land management (i.e concreting over it) and increasing and more frequent rainfall due to climate change.

Please email your MP and express your concern about building houses on our farms and fields at a time of climate emergency:

Wirral West: matthew.patrick.mp@parliament.uk
Wallasey: angela.eagle.mp@parliament.uk
Birkenhead: alison.mcgovern.mp@parliament.uk
Ellesmere Port and Bromborough: justin.madders.mp@parliament.uk