City faces shortfall of £41m for flood protection
PLANS TO protect Sheffield from a repeat of the devastating flooding that caused two deaths in 2007 face a £41m funding shortfall.
The combined estimated cost of six schemes planned for the city is £83m.
While the first £19m project covering the Lower Don Valley area of the city is almost finished and £23m of Government funding provisionally granted for the other five schemes, there is still a major shortfall in the funds required – while it has been warned the cost of doing the work could prove to be even greater than currently predicted.
It comes after council leader Julie Dore wrote to then-Prime Minister David Cameron in January 2016 to warn that stretched council budgets meant the Government would need to provide more support to the city in building flood defences.
“We need government to work with us to ensure our city is prepared and protected. Protection is cheaper than cure,” she said at the time.
Ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 2007 floods this weekend, a spokesman for Sheffield Council said extra funding is needed to make the schemes a reality.
One of the outstanding schemes is for flood alleviation work on the River Sheaf, where schoolboy Ryan Parry drowned during the 2007 floods.
A spokesperson for Sheffield City Council said: “At this stage, the proposed flood protection programme for Sheffield, which is made up of six individual schemes, is estimated to cost in
the region of £83m.
“However, it must be stressed that most of these schemes are at a very early stage and, as with all huge infrastructure projects, costs could change once detailed plans are drawn up and progressed.
“The council is working closely with central Government to secure funds, so we can get on and build the defences, protect our city and secure the benefits they will bring.
“We look forward to progressing our plans further, once we have a funding commitment which can make the schemes a reality.”
The new Government manifesto continues to back plans for £2.5bn investment in flood protection across the country over six years. The money will support more than 1,500 flood defence schemes, protecting 300,000 properties by 2021.
At an event in Sheffield today, a plaque will be unveiled to mark the 10th anniversary of the floods in 2007, at the Nursery Street riverside park.
James Mead, Environment Agency senior flood risk advisor, said: “With 10 years since the devastating floods of 2007, we continue to work with Sheffield Council and invest in the city, not just in improving flood defences but in better maintenance, improving our flood warning service and promoting flood awareness.
“As the Lower Don Valley flood alleviation scheme comes to fruition we are looking forward to working with our partners to further reduce the risk of flooding across the city.”
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said: “We will invest £23 mover six years to improve flood defences in Sheffield, on top of the £19m we have already spent on better protecting families, businesses and communities in the city.
“And if a flood does happen, we’re prepared – the Environment Agency has 250 high-volume pumps that can be moved quickly around the country, four times the amount of mobile flood defences to last year, and up to 1,200 soldiers on 24-hour standby to help if needed.”
THE FUTURE funding of major flood defence schemes could be thrown into doubt post-Brexit, a council leader has warned.
It came as a £14m flood alleviation scheme, which was half paid for by the European Regional Development Fund and will cut the flood risk to around 8,000 homes in Hull and the East Riding, was officially launched. Another £3.5m ERDF funding is going into the £36m River Hull defences.
East Riding council leader Steve Parnaby said: “If funding doesn’t come from Europe, the Government will need to have some schemes in place to replace that funding, otherwise big schemes like this are never going to happen.
“While I understand people’s concerns about wanting to leave Europe, people need to understand the benefits we have had from grants from Europe.
“Nationally we pay an awful lot into Europe and don’t seem to get a lot, but in the north of England, we have done pretty well.”
The Willerby and Derringham Flood Alleviation Scheme (WaDFAS) was completed last year, but the official launch was held yesterday to mark the tenth anniversary of the floods which swept through Hull and East Riding in June 2007, damaging around 14,000 homes and businesses. One of the largest civil engineering projects ever undertaken in the East Riding, it comprises four lagoons connected by natural watercourses and culverts, starting up at Great Gutter lane near Swanland and ending at Willerby Carr two miles away.
Yesterday there was hardly any water, but the lagoons – which are designed to hold back up to 232,000 cubic metres, the equivalent of 93 Olympic-sized swimming pools – were tested last year, when they filled up after heavy rain. Project manager Andy Cooper said: “Basically the reservoirs store water in the upper part of the catchment and let it out slowly so it doesn’t surcharge the urban drainage system down here. Last November 22 we had a storm and had something like 40,000 cubic metres stored on that one event.
“You can never say they (homes) won’t flood but it takes properties out of a severe flood to a moderate, or from a moderate to minimal, which in a very level area like Hull means a lot of properties and a lot of value.”
Chrissy Collinson had water lapping under the floorboards of her home in Hotham Road South in the floods of 2007, and remembers the devastation and speed with which it happened. “You just felt for all those people with brushes fruitlessly trying to get water away from their doors. Our dread would be it that it would happen again. It was a relief (to see this work).”
WaDFAS is the first of three major schemes. Two others, the Anlaby and East Ella and the Cottingham and Orchard Park Flood Alleviation Schemes, costing £42m together, have got planning permission and are due to start phased work this summer – delivered by East Riding Council in partnership with Hull Council and the Environment Agency, which administers Flood Defence Grant In Aid, and the Humber LEP, which has allocated Local Growth Fund money towards the schemes, through the Humber Growth Deal.