Leeds loses out on extra government money for flood defences
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Version 0 of 1. The city of Leeds, submerged by devastating floods in December, has failed to win any new funding for better flood defences after environment secretary Liz Truss met the city’s MPs. A Guardian analysis of planned flood defences in Leeds shows that a £180m scheme that was delayed and heavily downsized following government funding cuts in 2011 covered areas of the city submerged by recent flooding. A smaller £45m plan is now going ahead but unlike the original scheme it does not cover the hard-hit Kirkstall Road area and will not be completed until 2017. Furthermore, the new plan is only intended to protect against heavy rainfall expected once in 75 years, not the more extreme one-in-200 year event under the original plan. Truss met the MP’s on Wednesday and Rachel Reeves, Labour MP for Leeds West, said: “It was just incredibly frustrating.” Reeves had asked for £3m for a feasibility study into a larger project and then a commitment to building it. “[Truss] said she needs to go away and find the money, but there’s no money in her budget, or the Environment Agency’s, to do a feasibility study, let alone a flood defence scheme at the moment,” Reeves told the Yorkshire Post. “We came out of the meeting with a commitment but I could say I’m going to take someone for lunch, but if I haven’t got the money to pay for it, it’s a vague commitment.” The Yorkshire Post’s editorial said: “The betrayal of Leeds is unforgivable.” After the meeting, Truss said: “I held a very constructive meeting with Leeds MPs to discuss what more can be done to protect the city and surrounding areas. We are fully committed to ensuring Leeds is properly protected from flooding. In the light of recent events, the Environment Agency will start work immediately with local partners on scoping work on further protection for the wider area which will lead to a full feasibility study.” Kerry McCarthy, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, said: “This is an embarrassment for David Cameron. His government failed to prepare and protect against climate change and, despite his claim that ‘money was no object’, his government cut funding for flood protection schemes. That short-termism has cost Leeds and other areas dearly. The government must drop its complacency over the need for climate change adaptation.” The Environment Agency (EA) spends the money allocated to it by the government. A Guardian analysis of EA plans over the last six years reveals how the planned Leeds scheme was delayed and downgraded. The EA plan for 2010-11, based on funding set in the final year of the last Labour government, indicated that £58m towards the £180m scheme would be spent by 2014-15. The scheme was intended to boost flood protection across a broad swathe of Leeds, encompassing 12 postal districts: LS1, LS2, LS3, LS4, LS5, LS9, LS10, LS11, LS12, LS13, LS18 and LS26. But capital spending on flood defences was cut by 27% by David Cameron’s government in 2011-12 and the scheme was put on hold until 2013-14. In that year, Leeds City Council agreed to make a multi-million pound contribution and a new smaller scheme began, with the EA spending £7.8m that year on embankments at Woodlesford, to the east of the city centre. The project was then estimated at £50.5m. Another £15.2m was spent the following year, 2014-15, with the end date set as 2017. The EA pending plan for the current year, 2015-16, now sets the project cost at £45m. The parts of the original 2010 scheme that would have provided protection to the Kirkstall road area would now cost a further £60m but is not part of the hard-pressed EA’s current plans which run to 2021. The £45m scheme that is going ahead will run for 4.3km along the river Aire between Leeds train station and Thwaite Mills, involving weirs and embankments. Once completed, Leeds City Council says it will protect the city centre, 3,000 homes and 500 businesses against flood events expected once every 75 years, as well as protecting 300 acres of development land and 22,000 jobs. Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Guy Shrubsole said: “Cuts to flood defences are a false economy – prevention is better than cure, and costs less than mopping up after every flood strikes. It’s disturbing that, as climate change worsens flood risk, defence schemes like these are being downgraded to offer lower levels of protection. The government needs to fundamentally rethink its flood defence strategy.” Earlier in January, Greg Mulholland, the Lib Dem MP for Leeds North West reminded Richard Benyon, who was flooding minister when the original £180m Leeds scheme was cut, that Benyon had called it “a Rolls-Royce” scheme “where a reasonably priced family car might serve some of the purpose”. Mulholland said: “Sadly, [Benyon] was wrong at the time and now we are paying the price. The damage done to Leeds by not having a scheme is considerably more than it would have cost.” But Benyon accused Mulholland of “historical revisionism”. He said: “The [£180m] scheme would have eaten into the budget of whoever was in government, and taken flood defences away from other communities.” |