Saturday marks the first anniversary of Storm Desmond, which devastated large parts of rural Northern England. On The eve of the anniversary, the NFU has complained that hundreds of farmers in the worst hit areas are still waiting to receive emergency funding to restore agricultural land.
 
Although the government maintains that it marshalled relief funding and flood defences in record time to combat the series of storms that caused severe flooding in December last year and January this year, shadow ministers from the Labour party and public interest groups have accused the government of exaggerating its spending claims and panned its approach to flooding as a “Sticking plaster response.”

Last week, think tank the Green Alliance warned that the government’s current flood defence policy is skewed towards reactive measures that come after flooding, rather than preventing more devastating flooding from happening in the first place, and said farm spending currently incentivises unsustainable land management that could make flooding worse downstream. The think tank called for post-Brexit subsidies to be used to support more natural flood defences.

The first of last year’s winter floods struck on 4 December, with intense rainfall hitting farming communities in Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland, Yorkshire, County Durham and Greater Manchester. Two thirds of Cumbrian farmers surveyed by NFU suffered damage to riverbanks, over half were left with gravel deposits on their land while more than 700 sheep were killed by flood waters.

In response, Defra announced that it had established a Farming Recovery Fund, with a pot totalling over £9m. However, a parliamentary question posed by Lib Dem leader and Cumbrian MP Tim Farron revealed in late October that only £2m had been paid out under the scheme, going to 338 farmers, when Defra’s headline emergency spending was intended to benefit 1,000 flood hit farmers in Northern England. Farmers have until the end of December to carry out repair work and claim back money under the scheme, but Mr Farron said in October that “Excessive bureaucracy is preventing farmers accessing the funds they need.”
 
NFU: Farmers left waiting for recovery funds

On Friday, NFU deputy president Minette Batters said it is “Extremely frustrating” that hundreds of farmers are now bracing themselves for another winter while still waiting for funding to help recover from storms that struck a year ago.  
 
Ms Batters said, “Storm Desmond and the subsequent flooding brought devastation to farming businesses and many are still feeling the effects. Farmers have faced months of uncertainty over access to the flood recovery fund, piled on top of delays to their annual farm payments. This is totally unacceptable and must be resolved as a matter of urgency.
 
“Scotland and Northern Ireland had their farming recovery funds done and dusted by the middle of 2016. So why are so many farmers in England being forced to wait for their emergency funding?”

Offering the same caveats as Tim Farron, Batters noted that RPA is still waiting to receive claims from affected farmers in some cases, but added that the high level of evidence needed to support claims is slowing down the process. The NFU deputy president said, “A review is urgently needed to improve the process for when this fund is inevitably needed again.”

Batters added, “To improve resilience across the country, two things are crucial - accurate modelling and suitable funding. Flood models must be continually updated to account for the extreme weather events which are becoming all too regular. Capital and maintenance budgets for flood risk management must also be reviewed. As we increase the number of assets improving the resilience of rural and urban areas to flooding, maintenance budgets have to be increased to cope with the demands placed on the pot of money.  In short, the government’s strategy to manage future flood risk must be to plan, protect and pay.”
 
She said, “Storm Angus which hit the UK a few weeks ago was a stark reminder that we have now entered the winter storm period. The flooding was localised and the damage relatively minor. However many areas vulnerable to flooding, including the Somerset Levels, have very high soil saturation levels.”