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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many flood defences were affected by the 2013-14 winter floods; how many such defences had been temporarily repaired by 31 October 2014; how many such defences have been permanently repaired by 31 October 2014; how many areas were affected by the 2013-14 winter floods; how many of those areas had permanently repaired by 31 October 2014 all their flood defences that had been damaged by the 2013-14 winter floods; how many of those areas had some of their flood defences only temporarily repaired by 31 October 2014; and to how many of the areas affected by the 2013-14 winter floods the Environment Agency had restored flood protection by 31 October 2014.

Going into this winter every community that was affected by the storms and floods of last winter will have the same or better standard of protection as they had before last winter.

Following the tidal surge on 5 December 2013 and the winter storms, a total of 890 recovery projects were identified across England; of these, 844 projects involved the repair of flood defence assets. The remaining 46 involve surveys, studies or actions relating to incident response.

By 31 October 2014, permanent repairs had been completed for 802 (95%) of the 844 defence projects. There are 42 (5%) defence projects where temporary repairs with contingency measures are in place, restoring the standard of protection to pre-winter 2013/14 levels.