Building workers in protest over health and safety
BUSINESSES IN Sheffield’s economically important Lower Don Valley were promised better protection from flooding following the completion yesterday of a £20m project funded by a combination of public and private investment.
The work, involving the installation of more than 60 new flood protection measures on the River Don between the Wicker and the M1 at Meadowhall, is said to benefit about 500 businesses on a fivemile stretch of the river.
The area was one of the worstaffected by the summer floods of 2007 and was hit again five years later, causing damage to property put at millions of pounds.
The protection scheme is the first of its kind in the country to have been funded through the creation of a Business Improvement District. Local firms are contributing about ten per cent of the cost, with the rest coming from the Government.
The Environment Agency said the new measures would help safeguard thousands of jobs in the area, which is considered second only to the city centre in its economic importance to Sheffield.
Chief executive Sir James Bevan said: “Flooding has devastating costs for people and businesses, and we know this has been the case for the people of Sheffield.”
Business leaders said the area had been hit by rising insurance costs since the floods. Richard Wright, executive director of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, said: “Insurance cover for flood risk is increasingly harder to get but the installation of these defences should help us moving forward.”
Philip Wilbourn, who runs a consultancy of environmental surveyors close to the Weedon Street Bridge and whose office was 1m deep in floodwater in 2007, added: “Everything changed after the floods. Banks became less likely to lend to businesses because of the flood risk and the area was at risk of commercial and social deprivation.”
But he said the event was also “a trigger for us to come together as a community to address the issues all of us were facing”.
Gordon Macrae, special projects manager at the engineer Gripple, whose premises were also flooded, said: “We have three manufacturing sites within 100 yards of the River Don, so doing nothing was not an option for us.
“Businesses in the Lower Don Valley are passionate about creating a long-term sustainable economy and the flood defence scheme has led to increased confidence in the business community here.” WORKERS ON a massive construction site in Hull downed tools yesterday over health and safety concerns.
Some 280 of the 480 workers walked out on the site of the £200m Energy Works power plant in Cleveland Street.
Energy Works (Hull) Ltd said the site remained operational and expected a “swift resolution” to the matter.
An independent health and safety audit took place on Wednesday which “confirmed the site is being operated and controlled in a safe manner”.
A statement added: “Despite this, there has been an unofficial action which involved approximately 280 of the 480-strong workforce withdrawing their labour from the site at 10.30 this morning.
“The principal contractor, M+W Group, anticipates a swift resolution to this matter, which will see the full resumption of works on site.”
Once up and running, the plant will take 250,000 tonnes of mostly black-bin “residual” household waste from councils across the country and convert it into a gas that turns a turbine to create electricity.
The plant will also intercept waste bound for environmentally conscious Scandinavia and Germany, where it is used to fuel district heating plants. The vast complex includes a 70m chimney stack and 200m-long building, where the waste will be processed and broken into small pieces before being carried on an overhead conveyor to another seven-storey building, which houses a gasifier.