17 June 2007The Independent
Ripon, one of the towns worst hit by this weekend's floods, could have escaped if ministers had provided the funds needed to protect it. Two years ago, the Environment Agency approved an £11m scheme to safeguard the historic Yorkshire town, but Margaret Beckett - then Environment Secretary - rejected its request for the extra money that was needed to construct it.
As a result, the work that should have started on the scheme in 2006 is now not scheduled to begin for another five years. On Friday, 50 people had to be rescued from their homes in the town as the River Skell burst its banks.
Yesterday, people in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the Midlands were busy mopping up their homes. Houses in Birmingham and Tamworth, Staffordshire, were also flooded - as were two square miles of west Hull. And searches were under way for a 17-year-old soldier after he was washed away crossing a swollen beck near Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire.
Three and a half inches of rain fell on Birmingham in just 24 hours, more than it normally receives in a month, and two inches fell in six hours in Yorkshire. Yesterday morning, 29 flood warnings were in place.
The Environment Agency says it needs an extra £200m over the next three years to construct new flood protection schemes, and £150m to maintain old ones. Its pleas for money have been supported by the Government's own Foresight project and by the Association of British Insurers.
Baroness Young, its chief executive, warned: "All the external independent authorities have established that we need substantially more money for both maintenance and building new defences. If we don't get it, we will continue to get worse [floods] as climate change bites."
