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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to protect Castlefields in Shrewsbury constituency from flooding.

The Environment Agency is working with key partners, including Shropshire Council, to address flooding in areas of Shrewsbury. The River Severn Partnership, jointly chaired by the Environment Agency and Shropshire Council, is taking a holistic approach to the management of water across the Severn catchment. This work includes looking at areas upstream of Shrewsbury, through the Severn Valley Water Management Scheme, where changes to land use practices may provide benefit to areas downstream, such as Castlefields.

Several pilot projects are already well underway. The Environment Agency takes an agile approach, considering the potential for projects to reduce flood risk to people and property locally within its capital programme. Such projects will always follow partnership funding rules to ensure the benefits outweigh the costs. In 2021 Government committed to invest £5.2billion across the country to address flood and coastal erosion risk.