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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding has been allocated to the Property Flood Resilience Scheme.

Following the unprecedented flooding in November 2019 and the storms which followed in winter 2019/2020, government announced Property Flood Resilience (PFR) repair grants of up to £5,000 in affected areas to help eligible homes, charities and businesses become more flood resilient.

The repair grants apply to those affected in district or unitary authorities that have 25 or more severely flooded properties.

The Property Flood Resilience (PFR) repair grants are administered by eligible local authorities, with Defra reimbursing local authorities for grants paid for eligible properties. The most recent figures (held by Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government) show that over 47 district or unitary councils with over 7000 properties are eligible in England for the November 2019 and February 2020 PFR repair schemes.

In recognition of the challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic, both the 2019 and 2020 schemes have been extended by 9 months to give homeowners and businesses more time to carry out repairs and local authorities a greater period to process the grants.

Local authorities on the November scheme now have until 31 December 2021 to recover their costs whilst local authorities on the February scheme have until 1 July 2022.