In the last year of the Coalition Government, Liberal Democrat Flood Minister, Dan Rogerson gave a keynote speech to the East of England LGA in which he said:
“Winter 2013 saw record levels of rainfall and the stormiest period we have experienced for at least 20 years.
“Record river flows, sea levels, wave heights and groundwater levels were recorded in many locations across the country.
“Around 8,300 properties nationally were flooded and there was damage and disruption to businesses, infrastructure, transport and utilities. Many organisations were involved in responding to that exceptional weather. The Government and its agencies; the emergency services and military; many voluntary organisations; and transport and utility companies.
“The Environment Agency hold a range of strategic incident response supplies across the country, including 425 mobile pumps, 3.8km of demountable and temporary flood defences, and 21 sandbag machines. We have improved the logistical management of these supplies, the way in which we work with engineering contractors and the arrangements we have with the Fire and Rescue Services to deploy supplies.
He said that the total spend on flood and erosion risk management from 2010/11 to 2014/15 would be more than £3.2bn and committed a further £2.3bn of capital investment in improving defences right up to 2021. This was to enable the Environment Agency and other risk management authorities to:
- reduce the risk of flooding to at least 300,000 households between April 2015 and March 2021, on top of the 165,000 protected during the current spending period
- reduce unit costs and continue gaining efficiencies
- attract more contributions from other sources, and
- enable even more projects to go ahead.
The Liberal Democrats have always been aware of the dangers of Climate Change and use every opportunity to encourage and implement mitigating action.
The picture shows the then Dacorum Borough Councillor for Aldbury & Wigginton, Rosemarie negotiating the flooded A4251 at Cow Roast in Autumn 2013.