Flood Control

(asked on 17th January 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment has he made of trends in the level of risk of surface water flooding; and what steps his Department is taking to help tackle these risks.


Answered by
Robbie Moore Portrait
Robbie Moore
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 7th February 2024

The Environment Agency report the number of properties at risk from surface water flooding in their Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Annual Report. It is currently estimated 3.4 million properties are at risk. A number of actions are underway to help reduce this risk and improve our understanding further.

As part of the government’s £5.2billion Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) investment programme, funding has been allocated to hundreds of projects up and down the country to better protect people and properties from surface water flooding.

Since 2020, the Environment Agency has supported 41 lead local flood authorities to enhance local surface water flood risk mapping, following £3.5 million in grants from the government. This new mapping will provide 4.6 million people with more detailed information and enable more targeted action. The information will also be incorporated into the new National Flood Risk Assessment (NaFRA2) that will provide a single picture of current and future flood risk from rivers, the sea and surface water.

The Environment Agency are leading the £150 million flood and coastal resilience innovation programme where 25 local areas are demonstrating how practical innovative actions can work to improve resilience to flooding and coastal erosion. More than half of these projects are looking at innovation to mitigate against and adapt to surface water flooding.

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