Over the past two-and-a-half months, Britain has faced the most extreme series of weather events ever experienced. The surge down the east coast of England in early December was the biggest in 60 years and in some cases even higher than in the tragedy of 1953.
The storms over Christmas and New Year were unprecedented and they have since been followed by the wettest January in the south since records began. Last week the highest waves ever recorded in Britain were crashing against the south-west coast. Serious flooding has resulted in many different parts of the country.
My heart goes out to those people whose homes, businesses and land have been flooded during this period. Flooding can be one of the most distressing experiences anyone can ever have. During the past 10 weeks about 5,000 houses have been flooded in many different parts of the country.
At the same time, it is important to realise that some 1.3 million homes — that would otherwise have been flooded — have been protected by Environment Agency (EA) defences and the dedicated work of EA staff members. There is always more that can be done, of course. There is a forward programme of work, investing in new flood defences, in town and country, all over England. And the substantial new funding announced last week by the government is really welcome. It will enable us to repair the damage that the winter storms have caused without eating into the money for new schemes to provide better protection for the future.
It is important, though, to realise a fundamental constraint on us. It is not only the overall allocation for flood defence work that limits what we can do. There is also a limit to the amount we can contribute to any individual scheme, determined by a benefit-to-cost rule imposed by the Treasury.
Additional funds
Take, for example, the highly visible issue of the dredging of the rivers on the Somerset Levels. Last year, after the 2012 floods, it was recognised that the local view that taking silt out of the two main rivers would help carry water away faster after a flood. The EA put £400,000 (Dh2.4 million) on the table to help with that work — the maximum amount the Treasury rules allowed EA to do. The additional funds from other sources that would be needed did not come in, though.
So when politicians start saying it is EA advice or decisions that are to blame, they need to realise that it is, in fact, government rules — laid down by successive governments, Labour and Tory — that are at the heart of the problem.
That problem has now, last week, been solved by two things. The first was the announcement of £10 million for Somerset, made by the prime minister. The other, probably even more important, was the statement by the Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, that the Somerset Levels are such a unique landscape — reclaimed land largely below sea level, with the Severn estuary at its back — that the normal rules should not apply. That decision really does free up the chance to find a longer-term solution to the future of the Levels.
It will certainly involve dredging and the EA will play its full part in that.
However, it also has to involve changing land use higher up the river catchments, renewing pumps and stopping the Severn tides backing up the rivers from the estuary.
What really saddens me, though, is seeing the EA’s work and expertise in flood-risk management, internationally respected and locally praised in many parts of Britain, being used as a political football for a good media story.
In a lifetime in public life, I have never seen the same sort of storm of background briefing, personal sniping and media frenzy getting in the way of decent people doing a valiant job, trying to cope with unprecedented natural forces.
Our staff members have worked their hearts out in order to protect as many people as possible in the face of extreme weather. They will carry on doing so. But there is no place for playing politics in the serious business of flood protection.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Lord Chris Smith is chairman of the Environment Agency.
