Flood Control: Finance
(asked on 11th November 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of the Environment Agency’s maintenance budget for flood defences has been spent on assets in (1) flood zone 1, (2) flood zone 2, (3) flood zone 3, and (4) flood zone 3b during the current financial year.
Answered by
Baroness Hayman of Ullock
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Whilst the Environment Agency (EA) has flood risk assets in many locations, many of these are in the river channels or are the line of defence between water and dry land. For this reason, flood zones do not provide the best measure of what flood risk areas the EA’s assets protect.
The EA instead looks at assets based on their 'consequence system' which rates the impact of assets on people, property and land.
Below are the planned maintenance costs for April 2024 to March 2025 split over these flood risk consequences:
Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Maintenance Allocation for 2024-25 | Resource Grant-in-Aid (£m) |
Within High Consequence Systems | 177 |
Within Medium Consequence Systems | 21 |
Within Low Consequence Systems | 9 |
Expenditure not limited to a specific location. (multiple locations or non-asset specific) | 7 |
Total | 214 |
These totals are based on work planned for 2024-25 and are subject to change. These Totals also include wider asset management costs that are integral to delivering and supporting works in these consequences areas.