Anne McIntosh: We need to simplify the fight against floods

Clearly, it is important that flood defence schemes designed to protect Yorkshire from the repeat of the disastrous 2007 summer floods proceed. As the Public Accounts Committee found last December, funding on flood defences has risen 40 per cent in the past five years (after earlier cuts) but there has been no significant improvement in flood defences.

In my new area of Thirsk, Malton and Filey which is particularly prone to flooding, there are a number of flood defence projects outstanding which require urgent solutions.

These include projects along Cod Beck in Thirsk, coastal defences in

Filey and plans for new houses to be built in and around; town and

flood defences to protect the residents and properties of

Sinnington, as well as the pioneering Pickering Pilot Project.

The Pickering project includes planting trees, creating buffer strips along watercourses and blocking moorland drains, to increase the time it takes from rain falling on the upper catchment to flood waters arriving in the watercourse flowing through Pickering.

Floodplain woodland can act as physical barrier for floodwater to flow through and trees also help to slow down the flow by improving soil structure to prevent erosion and increase water absorption into the ground. Woody debris in smaller tributaries can also function as dams to trap sediment and reduce flow, and buffer strips. The trial project is one of the first of its kind in this country and if successful could provide a model for flood defence schemes throughout the country.

The project is an example of where I believe we can do so much more with some original thinking. We spend only 1 in every 8 on regular maintenance and dredging of our rivers and watercourse, with the main funding going to capital expenditure. Regular maintenance work must be continually carried out on rivers and other water courses in order to improve their flow and I believe that this lack of dredging has led to a serious increase risk of flooding. The work of Internal Drainage Boards is exemplary in this regard.

We, therefore, need to ensure there is regular maintenance of water courses, while at the same time protecting flood resources and learning to do more with less. We need to move away from capital intensive concrete defences to more sustainable alleviation schemes, where appropriate. There should also be a presumption against building on flood plains and any future developments must be sustainable, which should include looking into water displacement.

I believe we need to reach a better balance between spending on maintenance and capital projects and a fairer balance between urban and rural areas. Reviewing our natural water flows and cycles and slowing water down will reduce flood risk but we also need to look at new, imaginative ways in flood risk management, such as rewarding land owners for storing flood waters in exceptional circumstances, recognising they are losing productive farmland for a period of time.

There will be major limitations to spending in the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs as the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced. In my view, a radical overall and streamlining of functions currently split between the

department and various, multiple quangos, which serve this policy area, will yield savings.

Richard Benyon MP, the Minister responsible for Flooding, recently answered a question in Parliament stating that the Environment Agency will exceed their targets for better protecting homes from flooding, by 15,000 homes, despite reduced funding for flood and coastal risk management. Defra has reduced flood and

coastal risk management funding by 30m and therefore construction of some defence schemes that have not yet started will be delayed until

2011-12. Regional flood defence committees, which include local authority representatives, will be agreeing which Environment Agency schemes are affected.

The Environment Agency is spending 629m on reducing flood and coastal risk this year, 21m more than last year, and are on track to better

protect 160,000 properties in England between April 2008 and March 2011 – exceeding the Government target of 145,000.

I believe such a review over a three year period will also provide the opportunity to greatly simplify the funding arrangements falling under Defra. I find the sheer range and number of funding opportunities bewildering and sympathise with farmers and land owners who find the whole application procedure complicated, burdensome and overwhelming.

The challenge we face in protecting Yorkshire and the rest of the country from the ever increasing risk of flooding is not just about how to make the funding available; the real key is how we make it available in a simpler, fairer and a more equitable and transparent way.