Four projects drown out rivals for protection funds

13 December 2006

A list of committed capital flood defence projects for 2007/08 has revealed that just four local authority schemes have swallowed up almost half the likely budget.
Surveyor’s finding sparked a renewed Local Government Association call for the ‘inadequate’ budget to be increased.
The list of ongoing and previously-approved new schemes reveals that four local authority schemes costing around £34M, nearly half the budget of £75M expected to be allocated in 2006/7.
The four schemes are two long-term projects – the £13M phase six of the Morecambe Bay coastal works, started in the early 1990s, and the third year of the £20M promenade scheme in Lancashire. Two new projects have been added to the programme to date – a £10.5M recharge of Newbiggin Bay beach in the Northeast, and a coastal protection scheme at Rother in Sussex.
A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs stressed that, despite a 35% real-terms increase in funding since 1996/97, ‘it is still necessary to prioritise’. It would not be drawn on the scope for further schemes to get the go ahead for 2007/08, but acknowledged there were other large ongoing schemes which had not yet been included on the list of capital projects, such as the four-year £62M scheme to rebuild 3.2km of Blackpool’s seawall.
The high level of commitment to ongoing projects in 2007/08 ‘reflects the size of our capital programme, rather than of insufficient funding as such’.
There would be an announcement on what further projects would attract funding in due course.
An LGA spokeswoman reiterated its call for the size of the budget to be revisited given the long list of worthy schemes waiting. Suffolk Coastal District Council has spent £500,000 on ‘a sticking-plaster solution’ this year, following the collapse of a section of the seawall at Felixstowe.
While DEFRA has pledged to reimburse the authority, Cllr Andy Smith, coast protection cabinet member, said adding 1,500t of rock to the beach ‘was not a good use of public money,’ as it would buy the authority two winters, at best.
It was continuing to press for the funding of an £11M groyne replacement.
And the Thames Flood Forum, sceptical that funding for a £200M scheme to provide new diversion channels to protect 30,000 people between Teddington and Datchet, is exploring alternative funding options, including the provision of funding by residents who stand to benefit.

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