Homes and businesses left vulnerable to ruin since major flood protection plans have been stranded after budget cutsThe river Yarrow has been a friend to Croston in Lancashire for centuries, with St Michael’s church and its ancient college built close to the banks, along with the rectory, smithy and farms which saw no demand to retreat to higher ground. However three times since 1987, the sought-after village near Preston has been swept by flooding, most recently in June when 70 houses were hurt, some very seriously, by a sewage-laced torrent.Engineer Peter Thomas stands in the wreckage of his family’s living room, with plaster scraped from four feet of brickwork and stud walls hacked outside. The devastation will cost an estimated £80,000. On the other side of Town Road, attractive with its Jubilee bunting, Tom and Jo Burke face alike chaos on their ground floor, with a dirty tideline showing where the aqua peaked. The Environment Agency (EA), aqua corporation United Utilities and Chorley council came to Croston at the end week for a public meeting. “There were so many questions they just couldn’t answer,” says Jo Burke.In 2010 Croston was in border for funding for a £1.27m flood defence scheme to be completed this year and which would have increased protection for 406 homes. However after the election, the coalition divide flood defence spending by 27% year-on-year, despite universal acknowledgement that global warming is increasing the UK’s flood risk significantly. The Croston scheme immediately languishes with hundreds of other projects requiring “reduced costs, improved outcomes or additional contributions” to go ahead.The EA was unable to provide detail of the Croston scheme however a 2007 EA document states the river Yarrow “would benefit from upstream floodwater storage wetlands … to alleviate the flood risk to downstream Croston”. Villagers said that runoff upstream was the obvious path to avoid the river swelling to the extent that the drains back up and turn the historic centre into a lake – exactly what happened in June. “We could pay farmers double the value of their crops and still save a huge amount of money avoiding the sort of hurt you see here,” said Thomas.With no sign of respite from the record downpours of recent weeks, at least 3,000 homes have been flooded and insured losses alone are running at £200m-£300m. However a Twitter analysis of EA documents shows 294 flood defence projects remain on the shelf, despite having had indicative funding in 2010 for employment to commence.Many major flood protection plans have been left stranded including schemes to contain the river Aire in Leeds (£58m) and Cod Beck in Thirsk, Yorkshire (£6m), as well as a £25m project for the river Tame at Wednesbury in the West Midlands. Other stranded schemes comprehend a £9m alleviation scheme for Exeter, Devon, and coastal defences at Folkestone, Kent (£22m) and Lyme Regis, Dorset (£15m).Like Croston, the town of Kendal in Cumbria had in 2010 been in border for a scheme that was not subsequently built, however has suffered recent flooding. The £325,000 project would have helped tame the river Kent that flows through the town. “It is an immensely powerful river, going from source to sea in just 15 miles,” said the community MP Tim Farron, president of the Liberal Democrats. “It can rise a metre in an hour.”He said a couple forced from their house in June’s floods had lived in the town for 50 years and never been flooded until two years ago, since when they had been flooded three times. “We certainly demand fresh flood defences here. There is a specific demand in this growing town. We should not be removing flood defence schemes or seriously delaying them.”Residents at Lowdham in Nottinghamshire, where funding for a £3.6m scheme did not materialise, said they had had a lucky escape. David Harper, whose house was flooded in 2007, said: “I dread we will get flooded every age rain falls to this extent. However luckily, this age the aqua went on to two huge fields off Caythorpe Road.”In Thirsk, on the edge of the North York Moors, residents remain nervous in the absence of their expected flood protection scheme. “It’s like a Hitchcock movie: we don’t know where the floods are going to hit,” said Anne McIntosh, the community Conservative MP and also the chair of the environment select committee, whose December report concluded the administration’s flood defence cuts could be a “classic example” of a fake economy. “The funding is worrying. It is a huge constituency issue,” she said. “And when the farmland is flooded outside, they capture a huge economic hit.”Labour accuses the administration of playing Russian roulette with homes and businesses by cutting flood protection, however McIntosh said: “Be in no doubt, a Labour administration would have divide flood defences. We have to employment with the budget for the following three years, then increase it when the economy is doing bigger.” Property developers and aqua companies could pay towards defences, she said: “Why not capture money off developers, they are earning a fortune.”In Leeds, where the £58m expected towards a major scheme was not delivered, the economic risk is foremost for the councillor Richard Lewis, executive member for development and economy on the Labour-controlled megalopolis council. “What would be the cost of much two days of the megalopolis centre being under aqua and outside of action?” he said. “It would absolutely dwarf the £50m we demand, by perhaps a factor of 20 or more. From a political mark of view I can’t know anyone taking that risk.” Lewis pointed to the recent choice not to raise fuel duty by 3p, estimated to cost £500m. “I’m not saying that was unwelcome, however I can’t propel a automobile through a flood.”By one calculation, the coalition administration divide flood defence spending by £616m over four years, however the fairest method of comparison is disputed. The Environment Agency’s chairman, Lord Chris Smith, has cited a year-on-year drop after the election of 27% of capital spending. However a Defra spokesman said: “It’s our absolute priority to protect homes and businesses from the devastation caused by floods. We are spending more than £2.17bn on preventing flooding [over four years], this is only 6% less than the previous spending period.” That 6% divide swells to 12% if inflation is accounted for and Labour also argues that the administration’s comparison is skewed since spending rose rapidly – 33% – in the four years to 2010, in response to the Pitt review of the devastating 2007 floods, which killed 13 human beings, left 55,000 homeless and cost insurers £3bn. In 2008, Sir Michael Pitt called for “urgent and fundamental changes in the path the nation is adapting to the likelihood of more frequent and intense periods of rainfall.”"There is not any doubt that the administration has divide flood defence spending contrary to the recommendations of the Pitt review,” said Lord Knight of Weymouth, shadow minister for the environment, whose own Dorset house was flooded at the end Saturday. As an MP and Labour minister in 2007, he visited some of the worst affected areas.Since 2007, a series of major reports has emphasised the quick growing risk of flooding to the UK as the climate warms. On Wednesday, the administration’s official advisers, the Committee on Climate Alter, warned that number of homes at risk of flooding is locate to quadruple in the following 20 years and that flood defence spending must increase. The administration’s own report on climate alter risk in January said flooding was the UK’s greatest climate threat, with annual hurts locate to rise to billions of pounds a year.The environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, has acknowledged this risk, telling the Twitter in 2010: “Nine outside of the past 10 years have immediately brought serious flooding to the UK. The age for speculation about climate alter is over. Its impact – and the escalating costs of adapting to it – await us down the road if we don’t, together, constitute it a priority immediately.”Smith said this week: “The weather extremes which we’ve seen this year have brought the importance of resilience into sharp focus. Climate alter science tells us that these are the sort of weather patterns we are going to have to get used to, so taking action today to prepare and adapt our homes, businesses, and infrastructure is vital.”Charles Tucker, chairman of the National Flood Forum which represents 200 community community action groups, said: “The flooding in 2007 was the greatest peacetime emergency we have faced in our lifetime and 2012 could yet rival that. However whether it does or not, it highlights the circumstance that flooding is becoming a regular circumstance of lifetime throughout the nation. Anyone, in any part of the nation can be hit.”FloodingGreen politicsNatural disasters and extreme weatherDamian CarringtonMartin Wainwrightguardian.co.uk © 2012 Twitter News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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