Following another winter of severe UK floods, the EAC launched an inquiry into Government policy and action on flooding focusing on whether the Government’s approach is ‘joined-up’, and the extent to which cooperation across Government on this matter is successful.
In particular, the EAC is looking at how Government departments and public bodies can better cooperate to offer coherent policy and action on flooding; what the strengths and weaknesses of the Government’s current approach are; and what is required from Government to ensure that the UK’s development is sustainable and best-placed to face future floods.
In its written evidence, the NFU stressed that flood and coastal risk management policy and practices must be reviewed to find far more resilient ways of managing flood risk and added that our whole approach to flood risk management should be planned to cope with more extreme weather.
We also added that more cooperation is needed to;
- recognise the value of agricultural land and other rural areas;
- increase investment in flood defence, particularly in maintenance activities;
- remove barriers to flood management solutions, such as managing flood management assets for the long term or supporting local authorities to help fund new IDBs; and
- manage water levels, rather than events such as ‘flooding’ or ‘droughts’.
You can read the NFU’s written submission in full on the EAC’s website