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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of regreening areas of London to improve flooding preparedness by managing surface water run off.

The risk management of surface water flooding is the responsibility of lead local flood authorities (LLFAs) in partnership with highways authorities and water companies. It is for LLFAs to determine the best approach to mitigating the risk, including the use of blue green infrastructure such as regreening.

HM Government fully supports the use of blue green infrastructure, including sustainable drainage systems, grey water recycling and natural flood management where these are appropriate to help manage surface water. We have placed a greater emphasis on this in our 25 Year Environment Plan, our Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Policy Statement and through updated planning policy.

HM Government made changes to its capital programme’s partnership funding rules to enable more surface water schemes – over the lifetime of the 2021-2027 capital programme the Environment Agency expect that at least one third of schemes will support surface water flood management. In addition, we have launched a new £100 million frequently flooded allowance to support communities that have experienced frequent flooding from any source, and are running a £200 million innovative resilience fund across 25 LLFA areas, many of which are exploring solutions to tackle surface water.