North Yorkshire County Council is to look at funding flood defence work through contributions from utilities companies.
Councils are already able to use ‘contributions secured from major beneficiaries’ to help fund the construction of flood defences.
Flooding in the village of Stamford Bridge
However, they are unable to compel the private sector to contribute to costs.
The chairman of the council's corporate and partnerships overview and scrutiny committee, Cllr Derek Bastiman, has urged the authority to lobby the Government to require utility companies to ‘make a proportionate and appropriate mandatory level of financial contribution’ where flood defence schemes will protect their infrastructure.
Cllr Bastiman’s motion added that any contribution should not be borne by customers.
The motion has been referred to North Yorkshire’s environment scrutiny committee for consideration before coming back to full council.
This article first appeared on themj.co.uk.
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