A PUBLIC meeting will be held next week where the Environment Agency and Bury Council will answer questions from victims of the Boxing Day floods.

A community drop-in session will be held from 3-6.30pm at Radcliffe Civic Suite on Thursday, February 11, followed by a public meeting with council chief executive Mike Owen and council leader Mike Connolly from 7-9pm.

At the drop-in session, residents will be able to talk to representatives of Bury Council, the Environment Agency, Six Town Housing, Irwell Valley Housing, the emergency services and others.

Mr Owen said: “The floods caused a great deal of distress for many of our residents, especially on a day when families expected to be relaxing.

"River levels were at their highest since records began, and emergency responders were faced with more than 70 serious incidents across the borough.

"There were, though, many positives to be noted, such as the way in which staff and community volunteers rallied round to help. Now that a few weeks have passed, it’s a good time to review what went well, what could have been done better, and what we can do in future."

Cllr Connolly added: "We want to make sure residents and businesses are back on their feet as soon as possible. There are a number of cash grants to help, and advice on dealing with future flooding risks, which we can talk to you about at the Radcliffe event. If you can’t attend, or don’t want to wait until the 11th, have a look at the information on the council’s website, bury.gov.uk"

At last month's Radcliffe Township Forum, Mr Owen and Cllr Connolly were challenged by angry residents over the council's response to the floods and promised to give more complete answers once Environment Agency officials could be brought in.

It had been hoped that a public meeting could be arranged before the end of January.

Mark Garratt, area flood risk manager at the Environment Agency, said: "Our thoughts continue to be with those communities that have flooded this winter. Flooding has a devastating impact on people’s lives and the key to recovering quickly and increase long-term resilience is for us to work together with partners and listen to the people who were affected, learning from their experiences.

"We would encourage anyone affected by flooding to come along to the meeting and chat to the organisations that can provide advice and support."

In a report submitted to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority last week, Mr Connolly said that the region's response to the floods had been "little short of magnificent".

Among the report's recommendations was extra funding for the fire service and new equipment, including an extra boat unit and flood bags at fire stations.

He said: "The response from all the agencies involved, and from the GM community, was little short of magnificent and, as a result of their efforts, there wasn’t one single fatality or serious injury directly related to the floods.

"More than 2,400 properties and 521 businesses in eight of our ten boroughs were affected so it’s important we now do what we can to help people repair their homes, lives and businesses, learn what lessons we can about the response and take steps to try and prevent this happening again."