BARONESS ASKS PM FOR MORE FLOODS DEFENCE CASH

10:16 - 02 October 2007

East Yorks: More cash is needed for flood defences across East Yorkshire, it has been claimed.

Calls for extra investment to be injected into flood defence budgets were levelled at Gordon Brown by the head of the Environment Agency, Baroness Young, and the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

The ABI say that despite an additional £200m being promised nationally by 2011, a hesitation to spend more to reduce the risk of flooding would lead to insurance companies struggling to offer affordable coverage.
 

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool, Baroness Young said: "This £200m isn't nearly enough."

The approach to the Prime Minister comes after Baroness Young last week called for a more coordinated approach to surface water flooding following the June floods that devastated much of the region.

She was speaking at a similar fringe event at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth and claimed that previously no one had been given responsibility for surface water flooding.

Now she wants the Environment Agency to be given a national lead on the issue in a bid to prevent a repeat of the devastation caused by this summer's floods.

She said: "The Environment Agency is responsible for managing flood risk from rivers and our seas but not at the moment for our surface water systems.

"Although we have worked for some time to improve flood risk management from seas and rivers, the majority of the flooding this summer came simply because the water fell out of the sky, the drains overflowed and surface water was caused very rapidly."