Yorkshire Post: City may sue water firm over flooding disaster

By Alexandra Wood

Hull Council is consulting lawyers about suing Yorkshire Water over its alleged negligence in failing to protect parts of the city from flooding.

The move comes as insurance giant Norwich Union, which is dealing with 2,400 claims from Hull flood victims, said it would be talking to the water company about recovering some of its costs.

Hull Council's announcement came as Yorkshire Water yesterday announced a £16m investment to improve its pumping stations in the city.

It follows damning criticism by an Independent Review Board, which accused Yorkshire Water of making the flooding worse through its failure to act on a decade of warnings about its drainage system. Hull was the worst affected area in the country this summer, with more than 20,000 victims and an estimated repair bill of about £100m.

The company said customers' bills will not be increased as a result of the new investment.

Hull Council said last night: "From the report of the Independent Review Body, it appears that Yorkshire Water has been negligent in installing and maintaining an adequate pumping and drainage system for Hull.

"The city council must answer to local people for the money we spend on their behalf. This includes the huge costs we have had to deal with, unexpectedly, as a result of the floods and the damage they caused. For this reason, we have a duty to our local council taxpayers to recover these losses if we can, from Yorkshire Water."

Yorkshire Water insists that no system could have coped with the unprecedented level of rainfall that hit the city.

But the report's authors, led by Prof Tom Coulthard of Hull University, said Yorkshire Water had failed to heed warnings about the condition of a pumping station in the Bransholme area of Hull in 1996 and 2001 and that it had not acted on recommendations made in 2004 and 2006 for the east and west of the city.

The report concluded that when it came to dealing with problems with a £200m system, called Humbercare, the company's bosses "have consistently taken the cheapest path available to them at the time".

Council leader Carl Minns – who has already said bosses at the company should consider resigning if they could not provide an adequate explanation as to why they failed to act – said: "After discussions with the leader of the main opposition group on the council and in the light of all the information we now have available about the causes of the floods I have instructed that we obtain the best legal advice on whether recovering the council's costs is possible."

East Yorkshire MP Greg Knight last night supported the council's move. He said: "If their lawyers said they had a case to sue I would not criticise them because many lives have been destroyed by the flooding that occurred. It is shocking that quite a bit of this was avoidable."

But the pressure group Taxpayers' Alliance warned: "On principle, if they are able to lessen the burden on the taxpayer by getting some financial redress from the company that they allege was in part responsible for the flooding damage, that is a good move. But they must be careful th
at they don't spend large amounts of taxpayers' money on a legal wild goose chase."

Yorkshire Water said: "Yorkshire Water has had no formal communication from Hull City Council regarding this issue. However, Yorkshire Water reiterates that the flooding in Hull was caused by exceptional weather and not by Yorkshire Water.

"The company has already committed to investing, but a long-term solution can only be achieved by a multi-agency approach."

A Norwich Union spokeswoman said: "We are exploring with Yorkshire Water the possibility of recovering some of both our and our customers' outlay."

Meanwhile flood alerts were issued for the Yorkshire coast from Whitby to Filey last night. The Environment Agency said officers would be on patrol in Scarborough where high tides were expected at 2am.