Returning to work after emergency eye surgery laid him up at the height of the flooding crisis in Southern England, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson today unveiled an action plan to improve resilience against flooding in Somerset.

image expired

Returning to the county, which saw the worst of widespread flooding in the South between December 2013 and early February, Mr Paterson said the flood plan would protect homes and businesses from future extreme weather. The environment secretary attracted heavy criticism during his last visit six weeks ago, when he refused to engage with locals and held a press conference exclusively for national media.  

The Somerset Levels and Moors Flood Action Plan was drawn up with the input of local partners in the region, including local councils, MPs, businesses and residents. The government has pledged an extra £10 million to see that the plan is carried out, doubling the county's allocation of flood recovery funds. Prime Minister David Cameron said that money would be "no object" to flood recovery plans earlier in the year.

Amongst the initiatives set out in the plan are:

• Immediate plans to dredge 8km of the Rivers Parrett and Tone as soon as it is safe and practical to do so;
• Making some temporary flood defences and pumping sites permanent;
• Helping local partners take more responsibility for water management on the Levels through a new Somerset rivers board;
• Supporting farmers to manage flood risk better (including better management in upper catchments); and
• Ensuring new developments meet the highest standards for water and drainage.

Speaking about the plan on Thursday, Owen Paterson said, "The exceptional weather over the past few months has taken its toll on flood prone communities. Six weeks ago I visited Somerset and saw for myself the exceptional impact on the county. That is why I commissioned urgent work from those at local level to identify how we can better protect Somerset communities over the next 20 years."

Dredging to proceed as soon as contractors deem it safe

Dredging, a populist but rather contentious aspect, plays a central role in the plan. Environment Agency experts, who clashed with communities secretary Eric Pickles – Paterson's stand-in – over the response to flooding in January, said the impact of dredging prior to severe winter weather would have been limited. Experts said dredging would not have averted flooding on the Somerset Levels, which was caused by record rainfall, and claimed reductions in its activity on the region's waterways were down to government cuts and cost-benefit restrictions placed on flood defence work.  

In response to calls for dredging, made popular by local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger in January, the Agency said in a statement that, "Whilst dredging would provide some benefit to managing future flood risk on the Somerset Levels and Moors, it is not always the best long-term or economic solution compared with other flood risk measures such as building walls or providing storage upstream.

"Increased dredging of rivers on the Somerset Levels would not have prevented the recent widespread flooding because of the sheer volume of rainfall. On tidal stretches of rivers, silt immediately begins to return to the river following dredging. Where dredging increases river flows, it can also make flooding worse downstream."

However, in late February, Paul Leinster, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, said, "We plan to start dredging [an 8km stretch identified by local people] by the end of March, as long as the contractors deem it is safe to do so.  We are committed to dredging as part of a broader package of work to protect people, property and land in Somerset."

On Thursday, the environment secretary added, "The plan we have received today includes some immediate actions that will help do this and I'm pleased that dredging will start as soon as it is safe to do."

The announcement was welcomed by Somerset councillors, though environment groups warned that the government response is "too simplistic" to be effective.

Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner Guy Shrubsole, said, "It seems the recent floods haven't woken up Owen Paterson to the fact that climate change is seriously messing with our weather. After the wettest winter ever recorded and a decade of worsening floods, the whole country is crying out for a proper long-term plan that's tough on flooding and tough on the causes of flooding.

"Today's announcement parrots simplistic demands to dredge… which experts say would have made little difference to the situation on the Somerset Levels. The real solutions to flooding are more complex – from halting the mismanagement of upland areas and stopping building on flood plains to cutting our dependency on fossil fuels."

During his period of absence Green Party politicians and environment campaigners called on the Prime Minister to sack the Defra secretary, who has slashed spending on climate change adaptation by 41 percent since his appointment, and is thought not to believe in anthropogenic climate change.