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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to help residents protect their property from frequent flooding in South Somerset.

The Government is investing a record £2.65 billion over two years in building, maintaining and repairing our flood and coastal defences, better protecting 52,000 properties. As part of this investment, £72 million is being reprioritised into maintaining Environment Agency flood defences in 2025/26. This reprioritisation will benefit a further 14,500 properties.

Property flood resilience (PFR) is delivered by multiple risk management authorities. We have a local programme of PFR across Somerset to provide resilience to individual properties where a capital scheme is not viable. The Environment Agency have installed resilience measures to properties to move them out of the highest risk of flooding.

A consultation will be launched in the coming months which will include a review of the existing flood policy funding formula to ensure a wider range of measures (such as property level resilience and nature-based solutions) can be supported to improve flood resilience for businesses and rural and coastal communities.

The consultation will be open to everyone, and we will be inviting all stakeholders, including organisations that play a role in flood resilience, community groups and members of the public, to be part of the consultation.