Flood protection will escape worst of Whitehall’s cuts

The government’s flood minister has signalled that flood protection will escape the worst of the cuts in the comprehensive spending review, the details of which will be announced on 20 October.

Environment minister Richard Benyon told a Conservative Party conference fringe event on flooding, held on Tuesday by the ABI, that flood defences were viewed as a priority at the top of government.

He said: “[Flood defence funding] is in our coalition agreement as an absolute priority. We continue to make this an absolute priority and this is understood at the highest level of government.”

However, he also said that the government could not be expected to meet the estimated £20bn cost of funding defences for every property at risk.

Benyon said: “We need a bit of honesty. The Environment Agency has identified 2.5 million households at risk – one in six. We have to be quite honest and say that there is no way that we can finance flood resilience for all these homes.”

He said of those living in high-risk coastal areas that some communities would have to be sacrificed due to rising sea levels and erosion.

“We are not going to be able to protect those communities and we need to think of ways of relocating them. There are communities that are going to disappear.” He called for the insurance industry to work with councils and the government on developing new risk-sharing models for funding flood defences.

AXA head of customer risk management Doug Barnett, who spoke at the event, called for clarity in the government’s long-term strategy.

Fellow panellist Andy Sawford, chief executive of LGiU (the Local Government Information Unit think tank), said it was unrealistic to expect the government to fully fund flood protection.

“If you think of the public sector financial challenge that we face, I don’t fancy our chances of finding £20bn. Although flooding affects some areas of the country, it doesn’t affect everybody. It’s not a huge political priority," he said.