UK flooding: Government faces calls to overhaul flood defences in showdown talks with key groups

Exclusive: UK’s top flood-fighting groups will face environment department Parliamentary Under-Secretary Rory Stewart

The emergency services prepare to rescue residents from a flooded street in Carlisle (AFP/Getty)

The UK’s top flood-fighting organisations will tell the Government this week it must completely overhaul flood defences, planning and housing development to avoid a repeat of the devastating scenes in Cumbria and Yorkshire.

The National Flood Forum has arranged showdown talks with the environment department Parliamentary Under-Secretary Rory Stewart on Wednesday that will involve 11 heavyweight organisations including the Association of British Insurers, the Institution of Civil Engineers and Friends of the Earth.

They will tell Mr Stewart that flood barriers must be built to higher standards in the wake of Storms Eva and Desmond, which are estimated to have cost the economy about £5bn.

Barriers in the UK are typically constructed to withstand all but the type of deluges expected to occur once every 100 years. By contrast, many Dutch flood defences can only be overcome by a one-in-10,000-year event.

Many of the organisations at the meeting are concerned the UK focuses too heavily on the trade-off between the cost and benefits of building defences rather than using the level of protection required by communities as a starting point.

They will also demand broader “holistic and culture” changes. These could involve retrofitting properties to better secure them against floods, working more closely with farmers to naturally divert rainwater away from town centres and using the tax system to encourage businesses and property developers to improve their premises.

Ministers could also look at setting a maximum number of homes that would be seen as acceptable to be flooded every year. A source attending the meeting said: “The Government’s level of ambition needs to improve considerably. Some of it is money, some of it is culture.

“Even schools, for example, have a part to play. It’s not just about how they cope with a flood, but how that affects their catchment, so they start thinking about how they will get children home. With schools or care homes you can start thinking about how you design them and where you put them.”

Other attendees at the meeting will include executives from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, British Insurance Brokers’ Association, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The Government has already announced a review of its strategy for dealing with “extreme weather”. MPs are also trying to force the Government to take greater responsibility for residential developments; almost 10,000 homes are built on floodplains every year. An amendment to the Housing Bill, proposed by Labour’s Alex Cunningham, calls for a statutory duty on the communities secretary and local government to “secure and promote” the resilience of properties against floods.

David Cameron is expected to announce an additional £40m for storm defences on Sunday, taking the amount pledged in the wake of the storms to nearly £200m. The Government will also match the first £2m raised by any charity for recovery projects, while transport minister Robert Goodwill has been appointed flooding envoy to Yorkshire.

Mr Cameron will say: “I have seen at first hand the devastation caused by flooding and that’s why this work to repair and improve flood defences is so vital.”

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader whose Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency was badly hit by the floods, said: “We must look at every flooding proposal to mitigate flooding and to support the thousands of people who are worried about their homes. The Government can and must do more.”

The House of Commons’ Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee (Efra) launches an inquiry into the Cumbrian floods this week. Efra committee member Angela Smith MP said: “A comprehensive approach is needed if we are to respond effectively to the challenges presented.”

Recent board minutes from the Environment Agency show that more than 2,000 of Britain’s key flood defences are in a condition that is below the required standard. An Environment Agency spokesman said: “It is too soon to understand if any assets that were below required condition before the flooding had any impact on the subsequent flooding.”