Flood Defences: Chesterfield

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of improving flood defences in Chesterfield.

I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce the debate. Flooding is a critical issue for my constituents in Chesterfield and a problem impacting people right across the country. I have seen at first hand the appalling impact that flooding has on our communities. I keenly recall the floods in 2007, when I was a councillor for Rother ward on Chesterfield borough council, and how many of those who were flooded felt abandoned. Following those floods, I, along with Lifehouse church, Chesterfield rotary club and Soroptimist International Chesterfield, set up the Chesterfield flood victims appeal, which raised around £16,000 for flood victims without flood insurance. The work the appeal did, meeting flood victims and helping them as they tried to put their homes and lives together, had a lasting impact on me. It became clear that once someone had been a flood victim, they were forever a flood victim.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate forward. He is right to underline the issue for Chesterfield, but there is a real problem across all the United Kingdom. Thinking of my constituency, and Newtownards in particular, 25,000 houses and properties are in the floodplain, which is bolstered by the floodbanks to make sure they do not get flooded out, and one in 33 in the coastal areas are flooded as well. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is time to have a flood strategy not just for Chesterfield, but for all of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so we can respond in a more global way?

[Mr Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we need a holistic approach; I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on that. Whichever community they are in, flood victims do not just lose irreplaceable possessions or even replaceable furniture and fittings; they lose the peace of mind that most of us take for granted. People in a property at risk of flood— as more than 6 million people across the United Kingdom are—live in fear, every single time there is heavy rain, that it will happen again. Those in flood risk areas will receive Environment Agency text warnings; in the weeks after the floods, every time they get those warnings, they will start lifting all their property upstairs in preparation for potential floods. After two or three false alarms, they stop doing that, but the fear of being flooded again never leaves them. Being insured is important but, even for those who are insured, being flooded and forced from their home for months at a time is a hugely disturbing and disrupting experience.

Following the 2007 floods, two things happened. First, in 2008 the Government, in conjunction with the insurance industry, updated the 2000 statement of principles, which subsequently morphed into the Flood Re scheme, which should mean that all residents, even in flood-hit areas, are able to obtain flood insurance. I stress to anyone who has been flooded that they can still get flood insurance through the Flood Re scheme. That is very important. Many of the people I met after the floods in 2023 said, “Oh well, no one will give us flood insurance round here.” They did not realise that with the Flood Re scheme, they could have been insured.

The second thing that changed was that we got a 250,000 cubic metre flood alleviation scheme on the River Rother at Wingerworth. Although that was welcome, Storm Babet, which hit Derbyshire so fearfully on October 20 2023, demonstrated that tragically, even that scheme was not enough in itself to keep Chesterfield safe. Storm Babet had a devastating effect on Chesterfield, leading to the River Rother and the River Hipper bursting their banks. As many as 600 homes and dozens of businesses were flooded, many of them the very same ones that were flooded in 2007. One of my constituents, Maureen Gilbert, tragically lost her life, drowned in the front room of her own home.

The economic cost to residents, businesses, communities and our nation is enormous. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency estimated that the 2015-2016 winter floods cost the nation’s economy £1.6 billion. The risk of flooding and the associated costs are only projected to rise over the coming years, due to climate change. The Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair, has been investigating the Government’s approach to flooding resilience in England. We have heard from expert witnesses about the historical under-investment in flood defences across the country, and about the importance of investing in and maintaining existing flood defences, as well as building new ones.

In Chesterfield, while the Wingerworth flood basin was not enough to prevent that flooding in 2023, it has come into its own over this past winter, as the floods that hit on new year’s day and the following weekend did not lead to any further flooded homes. However, there is still a need for improved protection from flooding for residents on Tapton Terrace; in Brampton, around the Chatsworth Road area; in Birdholme, off the Derby Road; and around Horns Bridge roundabout.

In meetings with management at the Environment Agency locally, I was told that the cost of protecting the homes on Tapton Terrace would actually cost more than the homes would be worth to buy. I was told that it would be cheaper for the EA to buy them than to protect them, so I said, “Go on, buy them then. At least give these people peace of mind.” The truth is that many of the people who live in flood-hit areas lose so much of the value of their homes. For the vast majority of us, the value of our homes is the biggest and most expensive asset that we have. If a person’s house goes from £200,000 to £130,000 over the course of a day, there is nothing that they can do about that—they are effectively trapped in that property. In fairness, the Environment Agency investigated, but it came back and said, “Well, that isn’t something that we can do.”

I have to say that Tapton Terrace is a particular worry to me because of its proximity to the River Rother, whose geography means that the speed with which it floods poses a real risk to life—we have already had one fatality there. It is very hard to see how anyone living in those properties who does not have the mobility to get upstairs is not very seriously at risk, as Mrs Gilbert tragically was in 2023.