Our flood defences aren’t fit for the climate we have now

This week’s political fuss over whether the floods in Yorkshire constitute a ‘national emergency’ misses the point. It is too easy to declare an emergency for political purposes, to give the impression that the government is taking an issue seriously. It’s quite obvious that the scenes we have seen this week represent an emergency — the question is whether, once the helicopter visits and photo opportunities have ceased, all is forgotten and the political world moves on to the next emergency.

What has happened in Yorkshire over the past week is a symptom of chronic failure to manage the threat of flooding. We keep suffering these events. In 2015, it was Cumbria; a year earlier it was Somerset. They are not apocalyptic — even in 2012, one of the worst years for flooding, the total number of homes seriously damaged by flooding did not exceed 8,000. Given that there are 23 million homes in England, to be flooded is still a rare and unfortunate occurrence. Nevertheless, floods are, for the most part, avoidable. They happen because we do not have a coherent strategy for managing rivers and maintaining coastal defences. We nibble at the problem, making piecemeal improvements when much more comprehensive action is required.

Every time we have floods, we are told that this is only just the beginning — climate change will make such events much more common. Government ministers and Environment Agency officials both spin this line, not least because it offers a chance to divert attention from their own failures. We hear promises that more money will be spent. Yet the action which follows is laughably out of kilter with the rhetoric on climate change. This year’s central government budget for building new flood defences and maintaining existing ones is £815 million — a pitifully small sum considering it has to cover every river and every mile of coast in England.