Flooding: Somerset

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, while applauding the work that is being done to try to help people in the stricken areas, particularly the Somerset Levels, can we look for a moment at the longer term? My noble friend told us last Thursday that,

“the Secretary of State has asked for a clear action plan for the sustainable future of the Somerset Levels and moors to resolve the problem for the next 20 years”.—[Official Report, 6/2/14; col. 264.]

Can I draw my noble friend’s attention to a recently published article by Dr Colin Clark, who is an extremely well known hydrologist, in charge of the Charldon Hill research centre in Somerset? The article is entitled, “Floods on the Somerset Levels: a Sad Tale of Ignorance and Neglect”—over the past 20 years. While having to deal with the crisis now is obviously absolutely crucial, I hope that the action plan will take account of the extremely important points made in Dr Clark’s article, where he identifies in some considerable detail—

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, we have 10 minutes altogether for the UQ.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

He says in considerable detail what actually should be done.

[Lord De Mauley]

I thank my noble friend for that. It is one of the helpful pieces of advice that is coming in. One issue that has been raised from a lot of quarters is that of dredging, which is only one part of flood maintenance work. Evidence shows that other maintenance activities, such as maintaining pumps, sluice gates and raised embankments, can sometimes provide better value for money in terms of protecting communities from flooding. The effectiveness of dredging in managing flood risk will therefore continue to be assessed on a location-by-location basis in full discussion with local communities and landowners. But I take my noble friend’s advice.