New analysis by the Press Association is suggesting that flood defence spending in the UK is biased towards wealthier households and the South East.

According to the Press Association investigation, the system for allocating taxpayers’ money is focussed on the value of assets which could skew the process towards better-off families and parts of the country where house prices are higher. In recent years the South East has received the majority of investment in flood defence infrastructure.

However, the Government’s National Flood Resilience Review Report published in September 2016 includes a commitment to focus on Core Cities in England, starting with a pilot project in Sheffield, with an ultimate aim of delivering flood defence levels similar to that of London.  If the pilot approach proves to be successful, the intention is to broaden it out to those other Core Cities where the level of flood protection is below that of London.

Around 5.4 million properties are at risk of flooding from rivers and the sea, surface water or both in England. Annual flood damage costs for the whole of the UK are estimated to be in the region of £1.1 billion.

The Government applies an economic formula to deciding where funding should be spent by calculating the economic losses avoided through protecting property and infrastructure. A flood protection scheme has to demonstrate that it delivers more in benefits than it costs to implement and maintain the defences.

The Government’s long-term investment scenarios study (LTIS), an economic assessment of future flood and coastal erosion risk management in the period 2015 to 2065, says the assessment of optimal investment is made only in terms of the costs of flooding that can currently be robustly estimated.

The LTIS considers levels of investment against the costs of future damage avoided. There is no attempt to consider, for example, the effect of flooding on health or family life or other factors influencing investment decisions, nor to consider constraints on funding or the need to prioritise limited resources.

According to the LTIS, the net present value of the optimised long-term investment is £102 billion over 100 years. This is the difference between the economic benefit of the overall investment, and the cost of providing it.

It would provide an overall benefit to cost ratio of about 5 to 1, while enabling interventions with lower benefit to cost ratios to go ahead provided they have a positive economic benefit. Benefits are valued according to the economic damages avoided by making the investment, including the benefits of protecting homes and businesses, farmland and infrastructure.

The Environment Agency has estimated that the cost of funding all activity to manage flood and coastal erosion risk where benefits are greater than costs would be around £25 billion over the next 100 years. Future damage from major storms may need additional repair funds.

In 2015/16 the level of Flood Defence Maintenance funding was £171m - for 2016/17 to 2019/20 this level of funding has been protected in real terms. Funding for 2020/21 and beyond is subject to future Spending Reviews. In March 2016, the Government also announced an additional £700m Flood Defence and Resilience Measures funding.

Central Government invested more than £3.2bn in FCERM over the five years from April 2010 to March 2015.

The Committee on Climate Change Adaptation sub-Committee’s UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 evidence report (July 2016) identified six priority areas of inter-related climate change risks for the UK, one of which is flooding and coastal change risks to communities, businesses and infrastructure.

The report says that the impacts of flooding and coastal change in the UK are already significant and expected to increase as a result of climate change, commenting:

“At the national level, more ambitious approaches to adaptation could offset increases in expected annual flood damage if global warming is limited to 2°C. However, within this national projection local impacts will vary considerably. Improving protection for some communities will be possible whilst others will face the prospect of significantly increased risks.”

“This will affect property values, business revenues and in extreme cases the viability of communities. Risks to communities and local economies are closely linked to the resilience of local infrastructure, in particular energy, transportation and communications systems.”

Waterbriefing is media partner with the Environment Agency’s major three-day conference and exhibition Flood and Coast 2017 which takes place from 28th to 30th March 2017 in Telford.  Click here for more information