What will Brexit mean for our flood defences?

The future funding of major flood defence schemes could be thrown into doubt post Brexit, a council leader has warned.
Coun Mike Thompson, portfolio holder for neighbourhoods, communities and environment with Hull City Council, Coun Stephen Parnaby, leader East Riding Council
Neil Longden, area flood coastal risk manager Yorkshire and East with the Environment Agency and Stephen Semple MD North Central Balfour Beatty at the £14m Willerby and Derringham Flood Alleviation scheme. Picture Tony Johnson.Coun Mike Thompson, portfolio holder for neighbourhoods, communities and environment with Hull City Council, Coun Stephen Parnaby, leader East Riding Council
Neil Longden, area flood coastal risk manager Yorkshire and East with the Environment Agency and Stephen Semple MD North Central Balfour Beatty at the £14m Willerby and Derringham Flood Alleviation scheme. Picture Tony Johnson.
Coun Mike Thompson, portfolio holder for neighbourhoods, communities and environment with Hull City Council, Coun Stephen Parnaby, leader East Riding Council Neil Longden, area flood coastal risk manager Yorkshire and East with the Environment Agency and Stephen Semple MD North Central Balfour Beatty at the £14m Willerby and Derringham Flood Alleviation scheme. Picture Tony Johnson.

It came as a £14m flood alleviation scheme, which was half paid for by the European Regional Development Fund, and will cut the flood risk to around 8,000 homes in Hull and the East Riding, was officially launched. Another £3.5m ERDF funding is going into the £36m River Hull defences.

East Riding council leader Steve Parnaby said: “If funding doesn’t come from Europe, the Government will need to have some schemes in place to replace that funding, otherwise big schemes like this are never going to happen.

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“While I understand peoples’ concerns about wanting to leave Europe, people need to understand the benefits we have had from grants from Europe.

“Nationally we pay an awful lot into Europe and don’t seem to get a lot, but in the north of England, we have done pretty well.”

The Willerby and Derringham Flood Alleviation Scheme was completed last year, but the official launch was held yesterday to mark the tenth anniversary of the devastating floods which swept through Hull and East Riding in June 2007, damaging around 14,000 homes and businesses. One of the largest civil engineering projects ever undertaken in the East Riding, it comprises four lagoons connected by natural watercourses and culverts, starting up at Great Gutter lane, near Swanland and ending at Willerby Carr two miles away.

Yesterday there was hardly any water, but the lagoons - which are designed to hold back up to 232,000 cubic metres, the equivalent of 93 Olympic-sized swimming pools - were tested last year, when they filled up after heavy rain. Project manager Andy Cooper said: “Basically the reservoirs store water in the upper part of the catchment and let it out slowly so it doesn’t surcharge the urban drainage system down here. Last November 22 we had a storm and had something like 40,000 cubic metres stored on that one event.

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“You can never say they (homes) won’t flood but it takes properties out of a severe flood to a moderate, or from a moderate to minimal, which in a very level area like Hull means a lot of properties and a lot of value.”

Chrissy Collinson had water lapping under the floorboards of her home on Hotham Road South in the floods of 2007, and remembers the devastation and speed with which it happened. “You just felt for all those people with brushes fruitlessly trying to get water away from their doors. Our dread would be it that it would happen again. It was a relief (to see this work).”

WaDFAS is the first of three major schemes. Two others, the Anlaby and East Ella and the Cottingham and Orchard Park Flood Alleviation Schemes, costing £42m together, have got planning permission and are due to start phased work this summer – delivered by East Riding Council in partnership with Hull Council and the Environment Agency, who administer Flood Defence Grant In Aid, and the Humber LEP, who have allocated Local Growth Fund money towards the schemes, through the Humber Growth Deal.