Jess Brown-Fuller
Main Page: Jess Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat - Chichester)Department Debates - View all Jess Brown-Fuller's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 month ago)
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Ms Oppong-Asare
We work very closely with the devolved Administrations, local resilience authorities and emergency responders regularly on how we can address this issue. The UK Resilience Academy will be launched in April next year, and it will be a great way for us to look at the lessons learned and at how we can strengthen our responses to such issues.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
My residents in Bersted, in Pagham and across my constituency of Chichester live in constant fear of storms such as Darragh. They cause severe localised flooding, which often isolates communities and closes businesses, often for months on end. Funding is available for local communities to improve their flood resilience, but West Sussex county council cut that funding by a third this year, even though the problem in my patch is only getting worse. How does the Minister expect communities to be resilient to flooding if local councils are eroding the funding?
Ms Oppong-Asare
We do not have authority over what West Sussex county council does, but we have been advising councils, which are under a lot of pressure, on how they could look at their flood resilience. This issue is really important, but it has not always been championed. Hopefully, we can have that conversation and encourage people to play a role.