Communities and Local Government Minister Eric Pickles gave the House of Commons an update yesterday on how the Government’s flood response and recovery work is progressing.
The MP told the House that since the East Coast surge in early December, over 6,480 properties have been flooded across England, but over the same period more than 1.3 million properties have been protected by flood protection measures. According to local Gold commanders, 2,600 homes have been flooded since the start of January, and a further 7,000 have been cut off by flood water or have lost access to services.
Mr. Pickles said that locally, the transition to recovery is underway and most local areas have convened recovery meetings. The Ministerial Recovery Group is also coordinating government support to local areas and infrastructure owners and operators to enable a return to normality as quickly as possible.
Government support for recovery
The Government has announced a range of funding packages to help the country recover from the severe weather - over the last week, the full set of arrangements have been confirmed.
The package of support includes:
- the £37 million Severe Weather Recovery Scheme to support communities and contribute to highway infrastructure repairs in affected areas
- the Repair and Renewal grant scheme for homes and business providing up to £5,000 to improve properties’ ability to withstand future flooding
- £4 million of central government funding for Council Tax relief for flood-affected homes
- central government funding for 100% business rate relief for 3 months for flood-affected businesses
- the £10 million Farming Recovery Fund to support farm businesses to restore flooded agricultural land and bring it back into production as quickly as possible
- the £10 million Business Support scheme providing hardship funding for small and medium businesses
- the £130 million Defra/Environment Agency Scheme for repairs and rebuilding of flood defence assets; work has already commenced on those defences with the highest priorities
- the enhanced Bellwin Scheme t announced to the House on 13 February
On 18 February, ministers were told at a meeting with the insurance industry that 2,000 loss adjusters stand ready to support those flooded. Mr. Pickles said the Government will be holding regular meetings to review progress and to find solutions to any issues arising on the ground.
The COBR Committee has been continuing to meet to monitor the continuing threat of groundwater flooding and progress in Somerset.
The Minister concluded:
“To ensure that we take a longer term view on this work the Prime Minister is now chairing the Cabinet Committee on Flooding to coordinate strategic long-term plans on flood recovery and flood resilience. More broadly, there will be further lessons to be learnt across government and its agencies. Gold commanders maintain a state of readiness to respond to future flooding should the risk increase again in coming weeks.”
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