Lib Dems announce new policies to deal with flooding

Extra support for victims of flooding and more work to shore up flood defences are ‘crucial to a sustainable economy’ say the Lib Dems. Today Lib Dems backed a motion setting a ‘New High Water Mark’ in dealing with floods across the UK.

The annual cost of flooding is thought to be around £1.1 billion and could rise to £27 billion by 2080. But the National Audit Office reported a saving of £8 for every £1 of capital investment in flood defences.

Dan Rogerson, Lib Dem Minister for Flooding, said: “Huge swathes of the country have taken a battering from floods. Climate change is a driver of more frequent extreme weather, which leads to more catastrophic flooding. So, it is crucial to a sustainable UK economy we invest now to protect homeowners and businesses in the future.”

Money to deal with flooding has increased by £400m under this Government, but further investment is needed. Conference today backed a series of measures, including:

• Increasing investment in flood defences, according to Environment Agency recommendations
• Making sure affordable insurance is available for homes built after 2009
• Continuing to work with the insurance industry to offer small businesses protection

Layla Moran, the Lib Dem, Oxford West and Abingdon prospective parliamentary candidate, said: “Living in an area affected by flooding I have seen with my own eyes just how distressing it can be. This motion shows that the Liberal Democrats take the issue very seriously. “Investing in flood defences, enforcing stricter planning regulations and ensuring the most vulnerable people have adequate insurance are just some of the measures we desperately need to take now to protect ourselves for the future. I am delighted it has passed."

Conference called on the Government to:

• Ensure flood defence spending is kept in line with that needed to protect against climate change impacts; introduce high standards for flood resilience for buildings and infrastructure in flood risk areas and enforce these for new build and major renovations.
• Implement programmes to help farmers and other land users adapt to climate change impact, including protecting soil and forest carbon sinks, encouraging planting in uplands, and restoring floodplains, with adequate compensation for landowners to put into place ‘soft’ prevention measures at source rather than relying on ‘hard’ flood defences downstream.
• Introduce long-term planning for droughts and floods, building natural resilience to extreme weather, rather than waiting to clean up the damage.
• Update construction and planning standards to future-proof housing and commercial buildings against higher summer temperatures caused by climate change, protecting people from heat-related deaths and reducing the need for air conditioning; this should include protecting urban trees and green spaces, to mitigate the ‘heat island’ effect.
• Encourage local authorities to report annually to their residents on actions taken to protect them from the impacts of climate change, including flood risk management plans.
• Extend the mandatory greenhouse gas emission reporting rules for large companies to include actions taken on adaptation.
• Prepare a national resilience plan to help the UK economy, national infrastructure and natural resources adapt to the likely impacts of a 3-4 degree global average temperature rise, building on the work done through the current national adaptation programme.