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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what comparative assessment he has made of his Department's preparedness to respond to flooding in winter (a) 2019-20 and (b) 2020-21 in (i) Shrewsbury and (ii) other places that experienced flooding in winter 2019-20.

In recent years, investment in defences has been effective at better protecting properties and reducing the impacts of flooding on people’s lives and livelihoods. We have seen progressively fewer properties flooded following recent incidents, avoiding more damages to people, businesses, landowners and infrastructure than might otherwise have been. In England, during the winter 2019/20 approximately 4,600 properties were sadly flooded while 128,000 properties were better protected from flooding.

In the last 12 months, the Environment Agency (EA) has completed around 20,000 inspections of flood assets that were damaged in the winter 2019/20 floods. The EA has a prioritised programme of repairs based on risk to lives and livelihoods underway. All of the flood defences damaged last year have either been repaired or have contingency plans in place to reduce the risk to their communities this winter.

Throughout the year, the EA has also continued to build and maintain flood risk management assets. The EA is on track to better protect 300,000 properties from flooding and coastal erosion between 2015 and 2021. Between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020, the EA worked with other Risk Management Authorities to complete approximately 176 flood and coastal erosion risk management schemes which helped better protect approximately 45,400 homes from flooding and 3,200 homes from coastal erosion. The EA is working through the River Severn Partnership to address long-term resilience.

During the flooding at the end of December 2020, 692 metres of demountable defences were erected across the country, 672m of which were in the West Midlands. 723 metres of temporary barriers were erected, 423 metres of which were in the West Midlands. This meant that over 9,300 properties were protected from flooding, with over 3,700 being in the West Midlands. The majority of these were within the River Severn catchment.

The EA has continued to engage virtually with communities at risk of flooding during the Coronavirus pandemic, adapting its approach by sharing scheme updates and consulting with local residents in a safe way.

The EA’s autumn Flood Action Campaign helped ensure that communities are better prepared and know how to check their flood risk with key messages around a three-point plan to PREPARE, ACT, SURVIVE. Over 1.4 million properties are signed up to receive free flood warnings.

Following the flooding in winter 2019/20 and again in February 2020 following storms Ciara and Dennis, the Government announced Property Flood Resilience (PFR) repair grants of up to £5,000 in affected areas to help eligible homes, charities and businesses become more flood resilient. The repair grants apply to those affected in district or unitary authorities that have 25 or more severely flooded properties.

The most recent figures (held by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government) show that 18 district or unitary councils with over 2300 properties are eligible in England for the November 2019 PFR repair scheme. Over 29 districts or unitary councils (including Shropshire Council, which includes Shrewsbury) with over 5000 properties are eligible in England for the February 2020 PFR repair scheme.

In recognition of the challenges created by the Coronavirus pandemic, both the 2019 and 2020 schemes have been extended by nine months to give homeowners and businesses more time to carry out repairs and local authorities a greater period to process the grants.

Local authorities on the November scheme now have until 31 December 2021 to recover their costs while local authorities on the February scheme have until 1 July 2022.