Funding for flood protection needs to increase rapidly to reach £1bn a year by 2025 in order to ensure no home is under threat, according to a new campaign launched today.
Backed by key groups including the Association of British Insurers (ABI), Friends of the Earth and the National Flood Forum, the Flood Free Homes campaign also called for a ‘zero tolerance of inappropriate new developments in areas at risk of flooding’.
Campaigners hope to build cross party consensus on long-term solutions to managing flood risks after thousands of homes were devastated in last winter's deluge.
Huw Evans, deputy director general at the ABI, said: ‘The need for this campaign to address the UK’s rising flood threat has never been more important. No action is not an option. Last winter’s floods highlighted the trauma and devastation flooding brings. How we manage our land and water has to become central to government decision making across the UK, whoever is in power.
‘Without adequate long-term investment in flood defence protection that reflects the increasing threat, a zero tolerance towards building in flood risk areas and political agreement, too many communities will continue to live with the constant fear of flooding.’
The Government has set aside £2.3bn for flood defences over the six years of the next parliament, meaning funding would have to more than double to reach the campaign’s goals.
Guy Shrubsole, Friends of the Earth climate campaigner, said: ‘With climate change pushing up flood risk, it's vital that the government massively ramps up its investment in flood defences and stops building homes on floodplains. It's not right that the human and economic costs of climate change are pushed onto those most vulnerable to flooding - we need to tackle this huge problem together.’
Campaigners also claimed Environment Agency data shows around two million homes in England and Wales at flood risk now from the rivers and sea, with over 500,000 of these at ‘moderate’ risk or greater, and around 2.4 million additional homes at risk of surface water flooding.
According to a 2009 report by the Agency ‘most new flood defence schemes now built reduce expected damage by at least £8 for every £1 spent, significantly above the 5 to 1 target set by central government’.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: 'We are already spending more than £3.2bn over the course of this parliament on flood management and protection from coastal erosion - half a billion pounds more than in the previous parliament. We will also be making record levels of capital investment, spending £2.3bn over six years in improving defences right up to 2021.
'This is in line with what the Environment Agency predicts will be the optimum investment for our flood defences over the next 10 years.
'We are also taking action to protect people in the highest flood risk areas from spiralling insurance premiums. For the first time, we will ensure access to affordable flood insurance for people in high risk areas.'
