UPWARDLY MOBILE
Businesses fear repeat of crisis without protection
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on a climbing wall during a visit to The Climbing Lab in Leeds, which was damaged during the Boxing Day floods in 2015 as he supported the city’s bid for more funding for flood defences to prevent any future disasters.
LABOUR LEADER Jeremy Corbyn has backed a bid by Leeds to get millions more in funding promised by the Government for flood defences.
Mr Corbyn, on a visit to businesses in the city devastated by the 2015 floods, said the Government should “cough up” as they had pledged to do.
The Boxing Day floods brought by Storm Eva in 2015 damaged more than 700 businesses and nearly 3,000 homes, mainly in the Kirkstall area of the city, on the banks of the River Aire.
The Climbing Lab on Kirkstall Industrial Park off Kirkstall Road was just about to open when it was flooded, causing £30,00 damage to stock and materials.
Mr Corbyn visited the Climbing Lab soon after the flood and fulfilled his promise to revisit the business yesterday.
He scaled a climbing wall after discussing challenges faced by businesses next to the River Aire with Hannah Mason, one of the Climbing Lab’s three owners.
Hannah Mason said: “I have no doubt that we will flood again.
“I’m creating a business that I want to be successful, but at the same time there is this threat that could wipe it all out.”
Labour claim the Government has broken promises to fund flood defences to protect against a once-in-200-year flood – instead opting for a cheaper option of defences protecting against a once-in-75-year flood.
A cross-party delegation of eight local MPs and council leaders have a meeting with Floods Minister Theresa Coffey later this month to ask for the £47m they say is lacking to protect the city from future flooding.
Mr Corbyn said: “I was in this very place in December 2015, when it was being flooded and the volunteers were amazing, the community support was fantastic.
“Unless the Government now funds the next stage of flood protection for Leeds then there are going to be problems ahead.
“In January 2016 I asked David Cameron in Prime Minister’s Question Time for a guarantee for the flood protection scheme in Leeds.
“He promised it would be funded, he said there would be no problem with central government money for flood protection.
“Here we are now nearly three years on, and it still hasn’t happened.”
Leeds MPs Rachel Reeves and Hilary Benn accompanied Mr Corbyn on the visit to businesses hit by the floods and will head the delegation to Government on October 17.
Mr Benn said one Germanowned engineering firm had left the city after being flooded, with the loss of 95 skilled and well-paid jobs.
Ms Reeves said businesses who stayed were worried of more floods and were struggling with insurance costs which had increased five fold while the Government now offered “second rate” flood prevention.
She said: “It’s a series of broken promises. Rory Stewart, Liz Truss, they are not giving what’s promised. We are £47m short of what’s needed.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn gave a strong and stable performance that revealed his Action Man tendencies as he scaled a wall at the climbing centre.
While Mr Corbyn had been told by his wife ahead of the visit “no dancing”, following the Prime Minister’s shimmy before her conference speech on Wednesday, she had made no mention of the 69-year-old not climbing.
“Please don’t tell my wife,” he said to an aide.
After chatting to staff, Mr Corbyn, who keeps fit by working on his allotment, whipped off his linen jacket and scaled a climbing wall to cheers and shouts of “Go on, Jeremy!” from other climbers. Gripping the hand holds and resting his feet on the supports as he went, Mr Corbyn climbed halfway up a 30-foot wall.
He shouted down with a smile to the gathering of cameras and reporters below: “Hello folks, how you doing? The future’s good with Labour – even higher with Labour.”
Mr Corbyn added: “If I fall down will you all turn the cameras off? Is that a deal?”
Ms Mason, one of the Climbing Lab’s owners, said after Mr Corbyn’s climb: “He is very good at climbing. He has got a natural talent for it.”
Here we are now nearly three years on, and it still hasn’t happened. Jeremy Corbyn, blaming the Government for lack of funds for flood protection.
LIKE IT or not, Jeremy Corbyn has been more effective than most at identifying the concerns of ordinary voters. Unlike Ministers, he recently endured the TransPennine Express rail service from Liverpool to Hull to see, for himself, the ordeal, and hardship, being suffered by passengers each day.
Yet, while there’s still deep scepticism surrounding his left-wing agenda and the economic viability of Labour’s spending plans, this alone will not save the Tories if Theresa May’s government collapses over Brexit and triggers a general election.
The Conservatives need to show that they, too, are a party of action if they’re to neuter the electoral appeal of Mr Corbyn at a time when voters here have been left fatigued by the Government’s indifference towards the North.
Take flooding. Yesterday Mr Corbyn was back in Leeds to, once again, meet those people – already long forgotten by the Government – whose homes and businesses were ruined nearly three years ago.
Yet, while this disaster exposed the financial folly of Government cuts to flood defence budgets, the Environment Agency is – even now – procrastinating and cancelling meetings with the likes of Leeds MPs Rachel Reeves and Hilary Benn rather than making sure that already vulnerable communities have adequate protection. After all, it was Mrs May who hinted on Wednesday that austerity could soon be over. She now needs to prove it.