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 enable small rural communities to access funding for flood prevention from the proceeds of the Regional Flood and Coastal Committee Levy.

Regional Flood and Coastal Committees (RFCCs) which include locally elected members, can use their Levy to fund flood resilience projects that are locally important, guided by local priorities and business plans. This includes projects that benefit small rural communities.

Recently, RFCCs have heavily supported Property Flood Resilience (PFR) projects, particularly in smaller rural communities where investment in larger engineered solutions is not always viable.