Flood defences are being overwhelmed by a whirlpool of spin

I once saw a man filet a fish in mid-air. Damian Carrington does something similar with the UK's flooding policy, in his Environment Blog in the Guardian (UK): Examining the goverment's claims over its funding of flood defences means diving into some pretty murky waters, but someone's got to do it. So, pinching my nose, here goes.

First, let's remember the fundamental contradication of the goverment's position: it states that the risk of flooding is going up, thanks to climate change, but also accepts that spending on defences is going down. Let's also remember this is not a niche issue. Everyone agrees that over five million homes in England and Wales are at risk of flooding and a landmark study published by the department of environment (Defra) itself only last week forecast that the damage caused by floods could rise tenfold to over £10bn a year in coming decades.

But, said Defra, responding to Tuesday's damning report from the Public accounts committee: "We've reformed the funding system to allow the number of flood defence schemes to be increased and give local people greater choice and control over protecting their community from flooding." What that "reform" means is that local authorities, communities and businesses are now "allowed" to put their own money in to pay for flood defences. Perhaps that's a good idea, but will it "increase" the number of schemes?

...So, based on the only evidence we have so far, the government's "reform" of flood defence funding is not "increasing" the number of schemes. It is decreasing them. Defra say they expect to raise £70m from local authorities, businesses and communities in the next three years for defences, but can't tell me how much is actually in the bag...

A flooded field in Torbryan, UK, shot by Derek Harper, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license