Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Corbyn blasts the geographical gap in flood spending
JEREMY Corbyn has blasted the North-south divide in flood defence funding as he demanded urgent help for ravaged communities in the North.
Boris Johnson finally called an emergency COBRA meeting last night – but Mr Corbyn said it would have happened sooner if the floods had hit the wealthier home counties.
The Labour leader said: “If this had happened in Surrey, not Yorkshire or the East Midlands, it seems far more likely that a national emergency would have been declared.”
The Government’s planned spending on flood defences until 2021 heavily favours London and the South East. It committed to investing £2.5billion for 2015-16 to 2020-21, but by far the largest projects are those for the Thames estuary.
That has led to 60% of the planned spending going to London and South East, home to 32% of England’s population.
Flood defence projects are funded according to a cost-benefit formula, so the higher property prices in the South East make projects there look better value for money.
Spending per person is highest in the South East at £180, London second at £116 and Yorkshire and the Humber at £83. Lowest is the West Midlands at £14, then the North East at £33.
Flood response services have faced crippling cuts under the Tories. Fire and rescue services have been axed by over £300million in real terms, cutting 23% of their frontline staff. In South and West Yorkshire firefighters have been cut by 25% and 36% respectively. The Environment Agency has lost 20% of its staff.
One in six properties in the UK are currently at risk of flooding, with studies suggesting that this figure could double in the coming decades as a result of the climate crisis.
Compared with 2015, national spending on flood defences is down by 10%.