The Government ordered the national report, focusing on flood defences, in the wake of the storms that hit the United Kingdom last winter. Some have still not been able to return.
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The long-awaited report outlines £12.5 million for temporary defences such as barriers and high-volume water pumps. The review also ignores the risks posed by flooding from heavy rainfall overwhelming sewers.
The review also included a new “stress test” for assessing the risk of flooding from rivers and the sea in England, which for the first time brings together Met Office climate forecasts and Environment Agency flood risk modelling.
EA chief executive Sir James Bevan said the organisation had worked closely with the Government on the review and welcomed the new plans. The business community has welcomed the Government’s commitment to critical investment infrastructure, but a widespread belief exists that a short-term strategy must be matched by increased funding to help companies at the risk of flooding.
Defra Secretary Andrea Leadsom said: “Last winter we saw how disruptive flooding can be for homes and businesses, as well as for key local infrastructure”. This builds on the £2.5bn already being invested between 2015-2021 to strengthen our flood and coastal defences, as well as spending £1bn on maintaining the nation’s flood defences over this Parliament.
The unveiling of a £12.5m scheme to improve temporary flood defences across the country has been slammed as an “Elastoplast”.
The university lecturer, who lives in Carlisle, Cumbria, with his wife and two children and has been flooded out twice, said: ” Flooding is the biggest threat to life and limb in the United Kingdom since World War Two.
But Dr Stephen Gibbs, chairman of the Carlisle Flood Action Group, suggested the Environment Agency (EA) was not equipped to do the job of tackling flooding and that the issue requires a change in approach.
He said: “Flooding is the biggest threat to life and limb in the United Kingdom since World War Two”.
He said he had hoped the review would look at measures to force water companies to take on a legal responsibility to reduce flood risk.
“Restoring natural, varied landscapes helps absorb flood waters and is more cost effective than expensive flood barriers and defences”, she said.
She said: “The case for rewilding as an effective way of managing flood risk is undeniable”.
He said a cross-party approach involving senior politicians was needed for a “root-and- branch” change to the way Government approaches the problem of flooding.
A near real-time analysis by scientists estimated the record rain during Storm Desmond was around 40% more likely because of climate change, and experts say intense rain and storms will become more common in the United Kingdom as global temperatures rise.
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Ministers have said “lessons learnt” from last winter’s floods have led to a “new approach”, but the Government’s review of flood resilience in England includes little new money in response to predictions of much higher rainfall.. “We need to recognise that there is a non-negligible chance that we will see further events of a similar, or maybe even greater, scale over the next decade”. The report said that Defra and the Environment Agency would guide the government on which communities it is most important to invest in.
