Flood Control: South Yorkshire

(asked on 21st January 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans she has to improve flood defences in South Yorkshire following the floods in November 2019.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 27th January 2020

Following the recent flooding in South Yorkshire, the Environment Agency (EA) have identified approximately £30 million of work on EA owned or maintained assets to return the assets to their target condition and improve the resilience of those assets against flooding. The EA have also identified an initial £50 million of work to make further new improvements works to flood defences in South Yorkshire.

In addition to this and prior to the recent floods, the Environment Agency’s existing flood programme in South Yorkshire from 2020/21 to 2026/27 showed that there is a need to invest £106 million to improve flood defences in the area. Under current partnership funding rules this would generate £42 million of Grant in Aid funding from Defra and leave the remaining balance to be found from other sources. The EA is aware that £44 million has potential sources of funding identified but not yet secured, with the balance of around £19 million still to be identified.

The Environment Agency is working with all the South Yorkshire Lead Flood Authorities and Sheffield City Region in a catchment wide approach to see how it can find the additional funding needed to secure a strong flood programme and recover from the November 2019 floods. The EA looks forward to strengthening these relationships as we work together to deliver increased flood resilience through engineering and nature based solutions for communities across South Yorkshire.

Government is investing £2.6 billion between 2015 and 2021 to better protect the country from flooding. This will attract more than £600 million of additional investment through partnership contributions, funding over 1,000 flood defence schemes to better protect 300,000 homes by 2021.

The Government are looking at current funding arrangements and an assessment of funding needs beyond 2021. We will continue to work with the EA to consider future investment needs and Government’s role in supporting the resilience of communities.

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