RESIDENTS, businesses and landowners are invited to have their say on plans to deal with flooding in Bury.

Areas of the borough were badly affected when the River Irwell burst its banks following unprecedented rainfall on Boxing Day 2015, and Bury Council is now looking for people to contribute their views on plans to combat flooding over the next few years.

The council are legally required to develop, maintain, apply and monitor a strategy to manage flood risk across the borough.

Last Wednesday, the council’s cabinet voted in favour of opening a period of consultation for the draft version of the Local Flood Risk Management Strategy to residents.

The consultation will run from Monday, October 30 until Monday, December 11.

The strategy is a framework which aims to increase the safety of people by reducing the number of people at risk of flooding, increasing the resilience of communities and reducing the impact of flooding.

Cllr Rishi Shori, leader of the council, welcomed the consultation and said he hoped investment in flood defences would also bring about economic regeneration to the town.

It is proposed that the final strategy will be completed by the end of March 2018.

Plans for a £20 million defence scheme to protect Radcliffe and Redvales, two of the areas worst affected by the 2015 floods, were presented to residents last month.

Cllr Alan Quinn, Cabinet Member for the Environment, said: “Due to extreme weather we are seeing more and more of these sorts of events.

“The Radcliffe and Redvales defence scheme is a major piece of engineering work which the council are willing to put £2 million into but we need the funding from the Environment Agency too.”

Cllr Quinn also advocated the inclusion of Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) in any future developments across the borough.

SuDS are ‘street trees’ used to prevent flooding by soaking up water and are part of the ongoing redevelopment of Bury New Road in Prestwich.

Any water not used by the trees is returned to the drainage system, cleaner and in lower volumes.

The Local Flood Risk Management Strategy can be accessed via the council’s website at https://councildecisions.bury.gov.uk/documents/s14386/LFRMS%202017.pdf.