Undertaking regular maintenance of England’s rivers would help improve flooding in rural areas, the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has said.
Recent storms have wreaked havoc across rural communities, damaging agricultural land and businesses as well as people’s homes.
The Government, as part of its 2020 Budget, pledged £5.2 billion funding for flood risk reduction – earmarked specifically for new infrastructure. But the CLA, which represents 28,000 rural businesses across England and Wales, including here on the Isle of Wight, estimates an extra £75 million per year is needed for the maintenance of flood-risk assets to help stave off flooding.
The CLA says 3.7 million acres of land in England and Wales are at risk from flooding.
CLA President Mark Bridgeman said:
“Many farmers and businesses have suffered catastrophic consequences of flooding from extreme weather events, and it could get worse.
“In many rural areas the key issue is not a need for new infrastructure, but the fact that flood defences on main rivers are not being consistently maintained by the Environment Agency. This greatly increases the pressure on land managers who farm alongside main rivers, and those who manage flood risk further upstream – such as internal drainage boards.
“For flood risk management to be effective, everyone must play their part, and currently the Environment Agency is vastly under resourced. For this reason, the CLA is calling for extra funding specifically to help the Environment Agency uphold their statutory responsibility to mitigate flood risk.
Article continues below this advertisement “Right now, some farmland is used to store water to protect communities downstream from further flooding. This is saving potentially millions of pounds’ worth of damage to local homes and businesses, but in the vast majority of cases it’s done without compensation. Whatever crop happens to be standing in those fields is lost.
“While acts like these help the community, it still leaves a big hole for many flood-hit businesses in the countryside which is why Government needs to come forward with this extra investment to help mitigate the risk of flooding altogether.”
In the South East the CLA represents thousands of farmers, landowners and rural businesses in Kent, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and the Isle of Wight.
Well I am shure if the farmers are given a huge grant and 100% tax allowance on any machinery bought they might get a Eastern European on minimum wage to clear the ditches and streams!
The thousands of extra homes, with many NOT for Islanders will increase flooding as the land used to build house and roads will not be able to soak up excess rain, and will run it into rivers adding to the problems for us all.
Vote these ungreen, and unpleasant beings OUT at the next local election.
Maybe we should vote you in..
Compulsory ‘ditching’ by the farmers on their land would be a start. Yes, dredge the rivers on a regular basis, that would certainly help also. It’s not rocket science is it. Get cracking……
Can’t dredge the rivers, you might kill a few newts, b*gger the houses.
yes, but imagine what else they would find….
Silly me I would have thought that the council would have been doing that since beginning … to protect the Island…. did there not be a department years ago, was it bridleways and waterways.. , or something like that.to keep both clear and safe.. or have I woken up in wrong country..