Who needs text messages to tell people a flood's coming when a set of sirens do a perfectly good job.
That's the view from emergency planners from Essex County Council who will not be rushing to take up a new scheme pioneered in Oxfordshire which sees flood warnings sent to residents by text.
Oxfordshire County Council is the first to sign up to the City Alerts Texting System (CATS) where people pay £1.50 a year for text updates from the emergency services to say there is water rising in their area.
However, an Essex County Council spokeswoman said: "We are aware of that scheme and we will probably be in touch with Oxfordshire to see what it entails, but we have no plans at the moment to adopt it.
"We have a 24-hour duty emergency officer and give public information via the media - newspapers and local radio. It seems to work well, but we like to keep up-to-date with new developments and see if we can improve our services."
"We have 36 flood warning sirens in Essex and it costs £17,500 a year to maintain them, but we are part of a partnership with Norfolk and Lincolnshire and share some of the costs with them."
Published Thursday, June 5, 2003
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