Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what preparations have been made (a) along the River Severn and (b) across the UK for potential flooding during winter 2020-21.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.

There are around 6,500 trained staff across the country, ready to respond to flooding. The Environment Agency (EA) may be responding to several concurrent incidents at the same time as adhering to Government coronavirus guidelines.

This year, the EA has completed around 20,000 inspections of flood risk management assets. The EA is making sure that any flood defences and equipment damaged during last winter’s flooding are either fixed or will have robust contingency plans in place. Around 160 projects will likely have contingency plans, such as temporary defences, in place that will ensure communities are well prepared for winter.

This winter, the EA’s Flood Action Campaign is asking communities to PREPARE, ACT, SURVIVE. Over 1.4 million properties are already signed up to receive free flood warnings.

Since winter 2015-16, the EA has invested in kit including 40 kilometres of temporary flood barriers and 250 high volume pumps.

Since April 2015 the EA has completed over 700 new flood and coastal defence projects. These include the Ipswich tidal defence barrier, phase 1 of the Exeter flood defence scheme and the Croston flood risk management scheme. Over 250,000 homes have already been better protected, working with partner risk management authorities. Of this total, 160,000 homes have benefitted from reduced flood risk delivered by EA schemes, and 90,000 homes at reduced risk through other Risk Management Authority led projects.

The EA is investing £500,000 in additional equipment and training to improve availability of its suppliers and specialists in flood incidents.

For part (a) specific to the Rivern Severn, I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I provided to his recent PQ 97520 asking “what steps his Department is taking to prevent flooding along the River Severn in winter 2020-21.” This is available at:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2020-09-30/97520