City gets £22m towards flood alleviation measures

MORE THAN £22m in extra government funding has been handed to officials in Leeds to help the city prevent a repeat of the devastating Boxing Day floods of 2015.

Leeds City Council has been granted £21m for phase two of its flood alleviation scheme, as well as £1.3m for natural flood management projects including an increase in woodland cover along the River Aire.

It is part of a £170m funding package which the Government says will kick-start “shovelready” flood defence projects across England to protect homes, businesses and jobs.

Yorkshire, which has been repeatedly hit by severe flooding in recent years, is among the biggest beneficiaries of the funding.

Some £12m is going to provide better protection for Hebden Bridge in the Calder Valley, which was badly affected by flooding earlier this year, while £16m will be spent on providing a “comprehensive flood defence within an area at high risk of flooding” on the River Loxley in South Yorkshire.

A further £960,000 will aid restoration of peatland in the Pennines to reduce flood risk in small towns and villages where it might not be viable to deliver traditional flood schemes.

The funding for Leeds comes after months of lobbying by local

leaders for government to give the city the protection it needs to avoid a repeat of the devastating 2015 boxing day floods, which damaged more than 2,600 homes and 700 businesses.

Leeds City Council’s Flood Alleviation Scheme, drawn up in the aftermath of the 2015 flood, was £23m short of its £112m total.

The existing funding pot only paid for defence work designed to protect Leeds against a onein-100 chance of flooding.

But the 2015 flood was equivalent to a one-in-200 year disaster.

The Government says that the new funding will protect more than 370 businesses and enable development of land for homes and jobs, subject to a business case approved by the Environment Department and Treasury.

Leeds City Council leader Judith Blake said: “This commitment by the government to allocate additional funding towards flood schemes in Leeds is welcome news and a huge endorsement of the tenacity and determination shown by all those who have continued to work so hard to ensure our city and communities are protected from the devastating impact of flooding.

“We are still working to understand the details of the funding being made available but this announcement will be particularly significant for the next step of the Leeds Flood Alleviation Scheme Phase 2.”