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News

HRH visits areas affected by the floods in North England and launches a new initiative for Peak District hill farmers

28th June 2007

The Prince of Wales met householders in one of the areas worst affected by the floods in the North of England today and paid tribute to the community and emergency services.

Catcliffe, near Rotherham, suffered severe flooding earlier this week after persistent heavy rain.

Upon arriving in the village, The Prince viewed the now more tranquil River Rother, and chatted to residents who came out of their houses to talk to him.

One woman, Tina Bell, was the first to talk to His Royal Highness.

She said: "There was so much attention on Catcliffe earlier in the week. It's good that he's come to keep the spotlight here when so much is needed to be done.

"The water only lapped up to my doorstep but I was one of the few lucky ones."

Water up to nine feet deep drenched most of the village when it was flooded earlier this week.

The village pub, The Plough, appeared in hundreds of pictures with floodwater up to the top of its front door and the phone box outside almost completely covered.

Millions of people watched TV footage of the flooded village where a caravan could be seen bobbing down the street bumping into walls and road signs.

The Prince walked around the town and met local residents who had gathered in the heart of the village. His Royal Highness also met representatives of the emergency services who have been stationed in Catcliffe for the past five days.

Speaking after visiting one family, The Prince said: "I feel enormously sympathetic toward them because I can image the horror of having to go through this kind of natural disaster, particularly at 3 o'clock in the morning, to be woken up and told to evacuate.

"And then, of course, there's the misery and horror of losing all your belongings, certainly all the ones on the ground floor, that then have to be destroyed."

He added: "But of course it makes it even more complicated I think when a lot of them had the same problem seven years ago, only this time it was even greater.

"So I feel deeply for what they've all had to go through.

"But of course the other thing that's so amazing is how it brings out the best in people when these awful disasters happen.

"People come to each other's rescue, the emergency services have obviously been marvellous and reacted in their extraordinarily special way."

The Prince also met workers at Sheffield Forge Masters and engineering company on Brightside Lane in Sheffield, which was badly flooded earlier this week.

Earlier in the day, The Prince of Wales launched the first of two schemes aimed at helping hill farmers in the Peak District.

An organic farmer himself, His Royal Highness revealed he made "a promise" to help the farming community in 2005 after hearing about the problems faced by those in the Peak District in the wake of agricultural policy reforms.

Two years on, The Prince launched a new brand of meat, to be produced and sold in and around the area called Peak Choice.

Peak Choice is a farmer-owned co-operative that will sell quality beef and lamb in local stores and over the internet.

The products will carry one of The Prince's watercolour paintings as a logo.

Fourteen farms have so far signed up to the initiative, and have committed to rearing their animals in an environmentally friendly way.

Addressing farming families at Grove Farm, outside Ashbourne, The Prince of Wales said: "It was in 2005 that I came to see for myself how farmers in this remarkably beautiful part of the country were trying to cope with reforms with the Common Agricultural Policy.

"I was deeply worried by the responses from all the farmers because it was clear that ... the future looked very bleak indeed."

He added: "Farms are being sold off and the younger generation is increasingly finding farming a less appealing prospect. Unaddressed, these conditions spell only disaster for farms and the landscape."

The Prince said he asked Business in the Community, one of The Prince’s Charities, to set up the Peak Choice project.

It will, he said, give people living in and around the Peak District a "tangible" way of helping their local farms survive.

Peak Choice Chief Executive Charles Dawson said: "What prompted the scheme was the state of farm incomes.

"It's critically important that farmers keep farming these upland areas. It's the way that they farm these areas that gives them their biodiversity.

"If they weren't farming it, it would end up as wasteland.

"At the moment, the farmers are seriously struggling. They are probably not making any money at all.

"So initiatives like Peak Choice have a financial benefit to them."

The Prince of Wales followed up the visit with the launch of the Peak District Dairy Wagon, a mobile training scheme based at nearby Onecote, in Staffordshire, aimed at helping dairy farmers develop a variety of products, such as yoghurts and flavoured milks.

Julia Cleverdon, Chief Executive of Business in the Community, said: "Both initiatives benefit consumers who are increasingly demanding high quality and locally sourced food, and the upland farmers who can take advantage of this growing market for their produce."

Click here to find out more about Business in the Community.
Click here to visit the Peak Choice website.

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