Essex Chronicle asks: Do we have enough resources locally to deal with adverse weather conditions?

Thank fully within the UK the weather is temperate and we endure on the whole mild weather conditions.

As an island the UK weather is quite unique and distinct in that it is highly changeable for this reason.Geographically this adds to the variance of weather that we have.

Unlike other countries such as Australia that can suffer severe drought conditions during their Summer months or the wet season of monsoon in South East Asia and India, the UK generally does not suffer these very harsh weather conditions.

What we have experienced as a country though is both the high risk of flooding and ultimately flooding in certain areas, particularly rural areas, last year, Eastern England suffered many flash floods due to heavy rain needing the help of the emergency services and A & E departments.

In the west country we have seen devastating floods affecting communities, changing lives, causing injury and accidents, polluting drinking water and needing urgent assistance.

In these extreme and adverse weather conditions we need our environment agency, our local councils and the emergency service to be on hand with contingency plans in these events and need to react quickly and effectively with funding able to achieve this.

In April 2014 96 local authorities signed up to Climate Local to help embrace the opportunities and benefits through saving on their energy bills,generating income from renewable energy, attracting new jobs and investment, reducing flood risks and managing the impacts of extreme weather, careful scrutiny needs to be given to ensure that initiatives such as Climate Local are comprehensibly put into action and changes are made.