Communities in the Midlands are set to benefit from a £3 million package of schemes in 2011/12 to protect them against the risk of flooding.

 The funding has been raised by the Midlands Flood Defence Committee from local authorities across the Midlands Region. In a meeting on 11 January 2011, the committee agreed to raise funding to support the rolling programme of Local Levy projects in 2011/12.

The Midlands Local Levy is used to fund projects that might not be eligible for national funding which nevertheless have great local importance to smaller communities and to the committee. Committee chairman Tim Farr said the levy supported ways of finding innovative and creative approaches to tackling local problems.

“The levy fund finances schemes which help to protect smaller communities that would not be eligible for funding otherwise. Thanks to the invaluable commitment of all our local authority partners, we have once again been able to ensure that the local levy plan for our region will continue and that the people they represent will see the benefits of increased protection against floods.

“The main objective remains to try to find solutions to the flooding problems that affect so many communities across the Midlands, and we will continue to work with local people to come up with those solutions.”

Midlands Director Mark Sitton-Kent commented:

"It is great news that in the current climate we have been able to offer hope to smaller communities of progressing with schemes to help protect them from flooding.

"So far money raised by Local Levy has supported 86 projects across the Midlands, such as Matlock, Aston Chase and Pershore. With this further £3 million we will be able to work with more communities to help protect them from the devastating effects of flooding.”