Found: cleaning of drains and gullys on highways. 3.15 Councils need a more flexible funding model for flood

Found: nature in key areas aligned to the achievement of National Environment Objectives (NAOs), including flood

Found: lowland peatland, where we are doing a lot, linked—if I am wholly frank with you—to our work on flood

Found: Obviously, upstream there is work with our tree planting and environmental schemes that can bring flood

Found: 2024, but a significant funding gap remains. 3.2 Implement a more flexible funding model for flood

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions his Department has had with the Environment Agency on trends in the level of (a) dredging and (b) desilting as a means of flood prevention.

Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Ministers and Defra officials regularly meet with the Environment Agency to discuss flood and water management issues, including dredging.

The Environment Agency assesses each situation individually and dredge when it is the right solution, and it provides long-term value for money. Understanding where it will, and will not, reduce flood risk is key.

Where there is evidence that dredging will reduce flood risk to local properties or agricultural land without increasing flooding downstream, it meets government criteria, and is cost effective, the Environment Agency will do it.

Dredging can contribute to reducing flooding in some locations, but in others dredging would be an extremely inefficient and ineffective way to manage flood risk, as the natural processes in many rivers can cause the silt to return and accumulate in the same places very quickly. We also know from historic records and modelling that dredging in some locations can increase erosion and flood risk for communities downstream.

In extreme flooding events, the relatively small increases in width and depth achievable by dredging the channel do not provide anywhere near enough capacity to contain the excess flood water, since the channel may already be full of water, and therefore does not prevent flooding.

Any structures encroaching in the river such as bridges, weirs and natural features need to be considered, as these could be damaged or may be pinch points with hard foundations which can make dredging ineffective. Deepening can in some instances also cause destabilising of natural riverbanks leading to soil erosion and damage to riverside flood defences.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what remediation and flood prevention work has been undertaken in South Holland and the Deepings constituency since 2019.

Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

In the South Holland and the Deepings Constituency, £3.2m of Government Investment (GiA) was invested in Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) schemes between 2019-20 and 2022-23 inclusive. Risk Management Authorities including the Environment Agency, Local Authorities and Internal Drainage Boards work in partnership to deliver the FCERM programme. In this period, 62 properties were better protected through capital schemes. Further flood warning and mapping improvements, recovery activities after flooding in 2019-20, and cross-boundary projects and studies were delivered outside of this capital programme. The Environment Agency has spent £10,511 revenue on Flood and Coastal Risk Management Maintenance between 2019-20 and 2023-24 inclusive. Actions include culvert clearance and weed cutting to improve flood conveyance, maintaining flood defences through embankment repairs and erosion protection, and operational safety improvements and mechanical and electrical maintenance of structures. The Lincolnshire Flood Risk and Water Management Partnership provides co-ordinated management and delivery of food risk and drainage functions of all relevant organisations across Lincolnshire.

Found: are expected and where they are associated with significant levels of risk mitigation costs, such as flood

Found: are expected and where they are associated with significant levels of risk mitigation costs, such as flood

Found: that the right woodlands in the right places can deliver carbon sequestration, biodiversity gains, flood

Found: carried on in the exercise of a power conferred by or under any enactment relating to land drain - age, flood

Found: that the right woodlands in the right places can deliver carbon sequestration, biodiversity gains, flood

Found: receive more emphasis in the Bill, while the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEP A) felt that flood

Found: flows, such as food, carbon and water, while concurrently delivering other available benefits like flood

Found: Environment and f lood prevention • Investing in flood prevention, including planting woodland, and

Found: Environment and f lood prevention • Investing in flood prevention, including planting woodland, and