Floody hell. "Call me Dave" Call me a Liar?Heavy winter rainfall has caused major flooding after a month’s worth of rain fell in 24 hours. After the terrible floods in Cumbria and Lancashire following storm Desmond in December last year caused economic losses of between £900m and £1,300m. The damage caused by Storm Eva, the two day Christmas floods in Leeds, York, Manchester and Eastern Scotland, could be more than £1,500million. The insurance industry is likely to pick up three quarters of the cost.
So is the Government to blame? Most definitely.
No matter how much "Call me Dave" claims to be increasing government spending on flood defences and various schemes to protect people's homes, the reality is that the Cameron government cut spending on flood protection by 20% after coming to power in 2010.
Even after increasing spending following the 2014 floods in Somerset, it had fallen back below the 2010 level in real, after inflation, terms, meaning hundreds of relatively inexpensive flood defence schemes being cancelled, one of which would have prevented Leeds flooding this time.
So big public statements that Cameron's government is investing £2.3bn on 1,400 schemes to protect 300,000 homes across England and Wales, with £50m help for Cumbria and £40m help for York mean nothing. They can be cut and cancelled again when the flooding, and new interest dies down.
Repairing flood damage costs about £1,100million a year according to the National Audit Office report. This could rise to £27,000million by 2080 with one in six properties at risk of flooding that's 5.2million homes!
So why is it that Britain is still building 10,000 new homes on flood plains? This, despite warnings of increased risk of flooding. One in every 14 new homes built in 2013/14 was built on land that is either at risk of flooding from either a river or the sea. These new homes will not benefit from the
Flood Re scheme.