13/01/2013 Sunday Politics South

In the South: It was water, water everywhere

before Christmas - are we looking at yet more flooding in the future

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2534 seconds

and, if so, how much will we have Welcome to Sunday Politics South -

my name's Peter Henley. On today's show: Volunteers are now running

eight of Dorset's libraries - the only way to save them from closure,

said the council. Critics say it won't save that much money and

means that communities are paying for them twice over.

More on that shortly. First let's meet the two politicians who'll be

with me for the next 20 minutes. Penny Mordaunt is the Conservative

MP for Portsmouth North, and Bob Price is the Labour leader of

Oxford City Council. A lot about benefits this week in the news. The

perception of the changes that are going through a other language that

is being used - strivers and shirkers - how is it playing out in

Oxford? Are people seeing those cuts yet? People are very aware of

the fact that there have been cuts. Housing benefit has been very

significant. I have had a lot of concern about the fact that a to

income family NE98 �1,000 between the two of them will still get

child benefit, whereas a family earning 60,000 will not get any. I

had one family with five children where they had made a firm decision

to look after the children who will now lose all that benefit because

their father and �60,000 a year. I think that is illogical and does

not square with the child tax credit system which looks at the

family. It does not fair and we were told that this cliff edge

would be avoided. I think that the policy is popular. The majority of

the population understand that if you have a limited amount of money

to spend, you have to spend it on those who need it most. But going

back to your language point, it is actually about those people who

have challenge is getting back into work. They may have been in three

generations of a family that Hoddle worked or have a mental health

problem as a consequence of being on the scrapheap. They need support

to get back into work and we will be spending money on that, as

opposed to just adding to an enormous welfare bill. It is a

popular policy. The answer to the discrepancy over the two households

on tax credits is to introduce transferable tax allowances.

Obviously, we have got to be able to afford it but where we can make

progress - and we have done a considerable amount already to lift

people out of tax altogether - at the next... At it is an se in terms

of presentation, isn't it? I had been in Parliament for a couple of

years now and this is one set of policies that the public really do

get. In hard times, MPs should not be receiving child benefit and we

have got to, with this limited pot, focus that stuff on those on the

lowest incomes. We also have to ensure we are getting the right

help for those people who want to get to work but face too many

obstacles. Sure early labour was supporting a 1% cap on public, but

not on this. The reason the welfare bill has gone up significantly is

because of unemployment going up. It is the failure of the government

get the economy moving. We now have a situation in which something like

�60 million extra is being paid in unemployment benefit because of

those situations that have been created. We to get the economy

growing again. The way to tackle the welfare bill is by getting

growth and new jobs. Earth we need to cut the deficit to do that.

Forget a white Christmas - for many people, last year was a really wet

Christmas. 2012 only narrowly missed out being the wettest year

ever - and with all that rain came the misery of flooded houses, roads

and railway lines. It was an irony probably lost on

thousands of homeowners but last year, we did go from drought a

hosepipe bans to torrential rain fall on flooding in the space of a

couple of months. And it fell by the torrential rain just kept

coming. Deluge after a deluge fallen on ground but was already

too waterlogged to absorb any more. Bridgend and washed-out misery for

road users, rail travellers and homeowners across the South. On the

weekend before Christmas, 1.5 inches of rain Fell. At the end use

this week, the Prime Minister was keen to point out how much the

government has been spending to tackle the issue. We have put an

extra �120 million in for flood defences. Everyone can see that the

flood defence work has made a significant difference. Flood risk

is a big issue in the Prime Minister's constituency. With the

now are James Blott, whose home in the Meon Valley has been flooded

five times already and currently has a couple of feet of water in

the cellar, and James Humphreys from the Environment Agency, which

is responsible for our flood defences. Your house has not been

built in the right place - agree you must have known when you bought

it. The floor at prior to the one that occurred seven days after I

moved into it was 30 years before. It was such a distant memory that

people did not remember the risk. They thought the risk had gone. The

family that I bought the house from had converted to be below ground

Earth rooms have to be living accommodation, so I had a dining

room and study which, seven days after I bought it, was 5 ft under

water. I have long since abandoned the seller but I have water about

two foot six inches below my floorboards. And so does well?

have had sewage in the village. am pleased to say it has not

reached my house this time. The bottom end of the village has had a

sewage problem, whether sewage trains have been charged with flood

water and the system has not been able to cope so the sewage has

bought out into the street. It is a horrible experience But we cannot

protect everybody, can we? That is the reality. We will never be able

to protect everyone from flooding at all times. We have to make sure

that the huge amounts of money we are investing affect as many houses

as possible. While it has always tragic hero of individual

circumstances, we must be really careful with public money we get

from local people and businesses and so on. Is it ageing

infrastructure? In your case it is the underground drains that cannot

cope. It is a number of things in our case. It goes back to World War

II, when a huge ditch that used to run through the village was filled

in in order to accommodate armoured vehicles before D-Day. At now the

did can't -- and now the ditch Cont clear the water? The road is now

higher than some of the front doors. It's it finger in the dyke still

for should we feel that things are improving? They are definitely

improving. You need to take some short-term measures to try and

alleviate pressures on people this year and next. But clearly, you

need to have a long-term view because a lot of things do not get

changed overnight. You need a long- term plan to improve things. We

have got that and I think, in many ways, things are far better now

than they used to be. Letter stalked our politicians. You can

tell us if you think what they say is right. The money the Prime

Minister told about his for 60,000 houses. Should everyone to be

having to pay to keep those has flowed free? There is work going on

in the area and the direction of travel at the moment is that the

onus is on the individual homeowner. I think, actually, there is more

that we should be doing and this has happened in my patch, in

Chichester, where I was talking to people who have farming land there,

which was deliberately flooded by the local authority to prevent

worse happening elsewhere. But he is not entitled to any compensation.

I think that is wrong and needs to be addressed. In Portsmouth, the

main problem for us... We have had greater investment in flood

defences but we do have a problem with areas on a hill with the

drains. We have to be able to show show that the programme of works is

addressing the problem otherwise be black in for a massive cost. --

people are in for. If a customer much, are we going to have to tell

people they are on their own? our Oxford, we have had a very good

level of co-operation between the Environment Agency and the councils.

We have had a scheme in place over the last five years which have made

big difference this time. We have had a significant improvement since

2007 with relatively small amounts of money. To resolve a problem for

Oxford, we need about �100,000 for stock in Bambury, �11 million was

spent and yet they have had walked all over the streets. With the kit

was a good scheme and we think that they might have been the occasional

property that was unlucky. -- we think it was. It is not foolproof,

is it? nothing ever is. The money it that the Prime Minister was

talking about is on top of what we were already spending. It is a top

up. We would always like more money but it is a significant sum of

money and 120 is being a topple. Which you be prepared to pay the

extra and have your insurance doubled? To or intents and purposes,

it already has. In response to what you have just been discussing, I

would say that I have pictures and video of a flood meadow under a

foot of water, from the first flood in 1994. And in 1996, two houses

were built on that very piece of land. Only a few years ago, a

factory in the village was converted to 26 dwellings,

connecting up to the very drained that was not able to cope in 2001.

So I think there is a very big question to be asked, particularly

of Southern Water, of how they are going to cope... How few got the

power to do that? We have a lot of discussions with them so I ate

would say that is a routine subject. Where people are allowed to build

houses is a local authority function. We provide advice about

how sensible it might be in terms of the flood risk but in the end,

it is elected people who make the decisions about where properties go.

Cheers, for coming in. Almost two years ago, austerity

budgets saw councils in the South, and across the country, announcing

controversial plans to withdraw funding from local libraries, to

save money. In many cases there's been a reprieve of sorts - but

often at the price of volunteers taking over the running of the

libraries. Tristan Pascoe reports from Dorset.

From Oxford to the Isle of Wight, there were noisy protests.

Campaigners gathered thousands of papers -- signatures on papers and

it direct action, including mass book borrowing withdrawals, to save

their libraries. In Dorset, the campaign attracted some high-

profile support. Or one of the saddest things I ever saw was

coming into Sarajevo many years ago and seeing a huge, wonderful,

renowned library going up in flames. It was terrible. Libraries matter.

In 2011, in a bid to save �600,000 from the Budget, Dorset County

Council decided to close 10 small libraries. Local communities took

up the fight to save them. Fast- forward 21 months and eight

community libraries that had their funding withdrawn by Dorset County

Council are going it alone and being run by volunteers. First to

be handed over to the community is this one at Puddletown. The

takeover of the libraries was only possible because of the tremendous

goodwill of local people giving up Without those people, we would not

be at the situation where we are today where we have only lost one

library throughout the county. are sad to be having to do it but

we would much rather have a library manned by people whose profession

is looking after libraries. council said they had to make

changes to the library service to save money. The economic reality

left them little choice. We have had to take �83 million out of the

�300 million revenue budget by 2015. We could not continue to run 34

libraries. We have had to find another way of doing it and our

communities have risen to the challenge and I am thrilled and I

wish them every success. As well as Puddletown, seven other libraries

in Dorset are being handed over to volunteers. Opponents say that the

hoped for saving of �600,000 is unrealistic. A parish council he is

having to face �10,500 for the next three years to pay to keep this

library open, even though it is being staffed by volunteers.

they are actually paying twice for the same library now and the county

council, in my rough estimate, the maximum money they will save by

close of these libraries is probably less than �100,000 a year.

In the next couple of days, this library will become the latest to

be taken over and run by the community. While having a library

here at all represent something of a victory for campaigners,

supporters know there are no Of this year, the concerns for the

future are what is going to happen to the financial situation. We are

fairly confident that enough for year agreement we have got with the

county council that that will see us through. But who knows be on

that? I wonder, six months from now, how many volunteers will I still

have? Will I still have their good will? Will they still turn up every

week? Can I get new volunteers to replace those who have to drop out

from in have? There is a my fears, keeping the service running. --

from ill-health. So for now, communities like Puddletown are

celebrating a new lease of life for their library. But concerns remain

about the long-term future of the library service, as councils

continue to try to balance the books. In the age of the internet

and the coffee shop, have libraries still got a place or have they got

to be modernised? A need to be modernised but they certainly have

a place because they are very valuable. Volunteers can enhance

them. Stability is important, getting volunteers to come through

successive generations. The point was made about the parish council

having to fund �10,000 is also an issue - paying twice for the same

facility. But they are very important part of the community. In

Oxfordshire, the campaign to keep them was very virulent and strong

and successful. It is a blend of the public and private and

voluntary sectors that will succeed. If the parish council and the

paying �10,000 and the volunteers have to give their time, it is

inefficient, isn't it? Questions have to be asked about some of the

decisions that are being taken. There is the bar it graph of doom,

which projects how much money will be left in not very many years just

because of the growing demand on adult social care. Actually, there

isn't any money left. It is clear, even in better financial Times, we

have to find new ways of doing things. But some local authorities

are not finding the right way of doing things. The lie breeze which

have been saved in Oxfordshire - will they be able to keep going? Or

one of the things we would agree on is that you can make commercial

decisions about libraries, too. You can have cafes in libraries which

will go up help them to keep going. In is getting those services,

thinking how you run them in a different way and maybe have more

volunteers going in but you still have a librarian there. And buying

the books, as well. There are some new opportunities. They are have

come through the localism bill. is not about existing services

facing cuts for stop it is also about to renew stuff. It is about

renovating community centres. We are about to sign over a community

transfer for an amazing building that has been left for completely

derelict and the castle can't afford to do anything with it. We

are going to give it to a group of volunteers. Had they, they will

bring about a life for the local community. -- hopefully. Now our

regular round-up of the political week in the South in 60 seconds.

Pothole patrols were deployed in West Sussex with a backlog of

repairs. It may force police drivers to slow down. More than

1000 patrol cars were caught speeding in the Thames Valley in

two years. Most had a good reason but 53 were prosecuted for stock

the us the new chief constable in Wiltshire, the first to be

appointed by the new Canice -- Police and Crime Commissioners.

Thursday shall sulk plans to close prisons. -- saw shock plans. From

the Ministry of funny walks, a Sussex Conservative Tim Lawton

presented his ten-minute rule Bill with its associated tradition and

flummery. He is talking about licensing child actors. By actors

and nerve-racking walk. I have done that myself! In is the week of the

relaunch, the mid- term in the coalition. Do you think that one

well or is it still does the economy that is going to make the

difference? We had some bad job losses at Honda and the prisons. It

is all about the economy. We have to get that back on track.

Portsmouth is actually faring better than a lot of places. With

regard to the prison, they are hope to be going to do that through only

voluntary redundancies and everyone else will be offered a new role but

clearly that will not suit everyone. We have to make sure people in that

situation have bespoke help and support to ensure that they are

able to have as many options as they possibly can. There may have

to be extra money for that. Yes but does it do about the Welfare to

Work programme, let's spend the money sensibly. Let's spend it on

getting people the support they need rather than continuing the

cycle of adding on to a totally unsustainable welfare bill.

sales are big in Oxford but in general, the consumer economy seems

to rely more and cars stop the British car market has been quite

buoyant. The European car market has been a disaster. Certainly, the

Mini, which is made in Oxford, cells known to be sent abroad but

not in Europe. It is doing very well. I don't think we have time to