COUNCIL bosses will return to Parliament this week in a bid to secure multi-million pound funding for Canvey’s drainage.

In March, MP Rebecca Harris joined Castle Point Council and Anglian Water representatives to present minister Liz Truss with a £24.5million bid for Government funding to upgrade drainage.

The group will now return to provide a more detailed submission of its plans to upgrade the island’s system.

The visit comes as Anglian Water has released a video outlining the merits of its new digital simulator, which predicts how major rainfall will affect Canvey.

Hundreds of faults and breaks were uncovered when the island’s 36km sewer network was inspected after major flooding last year.

Jonathan Glerum, Anglian Water’s flood risk manager, said: “In July 2014 we had a really significant summer rain storm. It was what we would term a one-in-319-year event.

“Enough rainfall to fill the whole of Wembley Stadium fell in the space of a few hours, so the effect was pretty devastating.

“The model gives us the opportunity to understand where there might be pinch points in the system and, if we have such a storm again in the future, how we might be able to manage the system as best as possible to cope with that sort of rainfall.”

It is believed the model will help convince the Government of the need for major funding.

Council chief executive David Marchant said: “We are very pleased with the model - it is all that we anticipated and all that we hoped for.

“What it does for the very first time is illustrate in powerful evidential terms what the drainage system does on Canvey.

“That’s not information that we knew before, but now we do.

“When you get severe events like those which affected the island in the last two years, that is a catastrophe in anybody’s book and 1,000 lives were wrecked.

“This ensures residents that their homes will not be affected to the same extent, but also we can be satisfied all the agencies have pulled together to secure a result for the residents that they deserve.”