Floods ravage UK countryside

While welcoming the Government’s promise to spend $250 million on flood maintenance and repairs, National Farmers Union president Peter Kendall said more needed to be done.

Parts of the UK have been battered by severe weather for months. Forecasters predict the storms to persist this week.

Following a visit to flood-hit areas of Somerset, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, Kendall says Britain needs more resilient and better managed flood defences to protect life and the environment.

Climate change scientists predict precisely this type of event becoming more frequent in future decades, he adds.

“Because of this we need more resilient, better managed flood defences with the capacity to protect life, property and farmland from excessive flooding. We must use all the tools available to us and make dredging a priority.

 “Declining maintenance in rivers and watercourses and reducing investment in pumps and infrastructure is reported across the country. It’s not all about Somerset of course, but Somerset is a prime example of two decades of under-investment.

“We must see a re-balancing of flood defence spending towards maintenance, which has declined by $98 million over the last five years, as part of the aim to reduce the severity of flooding.”

Kendall wants quality farmland given much higher priority in flood protection. 

The Government’s policy on flood defence must recognise the importance of food production and the business of farming and any funding provided for recovery needs to reflect this, he says.

“Some of the debate in recent weeks has been about choosing between protecting urban and rural areas. This is an incredibly simplistic, not to mention dangerous, argument when in fact both must be protected and have a role to play in reducing flood severity.”

NFU members James and Jenny Winslade have had to evacuate 550 cattle from their Somerset farm, helped by farming friends. Ten tractors took their stock to Sedgemoor livestock market from where they are now in seven locations. The market staff helped to sort the paperwork for the cattle while Jenny decided where the stock would go and how they would be fed.

Despite building earth banks, their farmhouse is waist deep in water and sewage and the cattle sheds have flooded. The cattle feed isn’t insured and they’ve lost their grass.

Jenny Winslade describes the situation as a disaster zone.  “This is so stressful. Any farmer knows the last thing you want to do is move cattle to market and then to other sheds.”