Government warned not to abandon flood-risk homes

THE Government has been warned not to abandon home owners in flood-risk areas by simply slashing spending on defences and making it impossible for them to get insurance.

Millions of homes face being refused cover unless insurers are satisfied with levels of investment in flood defences when an agreement expires in 2013, the Local Government Association (LGA) said.

Fears of the collapse of the agreement between the Government and the insurance industry – which could leave thousands of homes in the region struggling to get cover after the floods of 2000 and 2007 – were first revealed by the Yorkshire Post last month.

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The Environment Agency has warned that spending on flood defences will need to double to bn per year by 2035 just to maintain the number of properties currently protected from flooding – but as public spending cuts loom, it looks unlikely that money will be available.

The chairman of the LGA environment board, Gary Porter, said: "The Government has made it clear there are going to be deep cuts in public spending. But there is a real danger that if sufficient resources are not put into managing the risk of flooding millions of households could find themselves in the awful position of being unable to insure their property against the risk of floods.

"There are huge opportunities to save money by giving power to the people who know their areas best and who can direct funding where it is needed most. By simply reducing spending we will do nothing to cut waste and instead hurt the front line more than we need to.

"We all remember the destruction that the 2007 floods caused. It is absolutely imperative that the Government does all it can to reduce the risk of it happening again and that if it does, ordinary people are not left to fend for themselves."

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Thousands of people were forced out of their homes across swathes of Hull and South Yorkshire in 2007 by severe flooding.

Council leaders want a massive war on waste to free up spending for things such as flood defences, the LGA claiming that 20bn a year could be saved by giving local areas more freedom over how money is spent and stripping out overlapping funding streams and quangos.

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