Luke Marsden: Council leaders need to do more to protect our town from flooding

At the time of writing this I wouldn’t be shocked if parts of our town are still underwater, we are simply not equipped to handle any form of flooding.

A photo of Kwik Fit Wigan located near Robin Park went viral across multiple Facebook groups and Wiganers’ feeds over the weekend as it looked to be almost submerging into the flooding around the area, refreshing and admirable to see the employees managing to make it into work, I assume they borrowed Noah’s ark.

The thing that is almost comical at this point is the roundabout entrance into Wigan Asda, drivers abandoned their cars on and near the roundabout, even shopping trollies were seen swimming along.

It is as though we don’t expect it despite this potentially perilous situation happening every time we get a big downpour, Wigan simply doesn’t have the proper infrastructure to cope. Too many bike lanes and not enough focus has been put on flooding mechanisms and ways of dispersing the water quickly.

As the world continues to change and we each do our part to battle climate change, our council leaders need to do more to protect our town from these harsh weather conditions.

We’ve had the ability to predict the weather for decades now so the flooding shouldn’t have come as a shock but based on the state of massively inconvenient road closures on Tanners Lane, Golborne; at Saddle Junction, from Pottery Road to Southgate; on Scot Lane and at Robin Park, I’d say once again we were unprepared.

I long for a heatwave but that would probably grind the trains to a halt and half of the roads to melt away.

Our town’s extreme weather planning needs to be replanned otherwise eventually it may well be raining men in Wigan, men who can’t get to work and pay their bills because of floods and road closures!