Need to tackle Cambridgeshire flooding laid out ahead of Spring Statement

A Cambridgeshire councillor believes investment in better flood protection measures must be taken more seriously.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will lay out the Government's latest spending plans in her Spring Statement, with spending cuts to different budgets including on welfare expected.

There could also be a change to the £2.4 billion promised on flood defences laid out in last year's Autumn Budget across 2024-25 and 2025-26.

"Apart from your house burning down, having your house flooded is about the worst thing that can happen to it," Councillor Stephen Ferguson, who covers St Neots and Little Paxton, said.

"Other than spending more money, I don't know what the answer is and I think it's a question of where you want to put your resources."

Flooding is 'significant problem'

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) - which monitors the Government's spending plans - said Ms Reeves had £9.9 billion to spend against her own borrowing rules.

But the OBR predicts this figure will likely be lower due to issues such as trade tariffs and higher inflation.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) said its six-year investment programme - between 2021 and 2027 - into better protecting homes from flooding has doubled to £5.2bn.

As well as protecting 336,000 properties, Defra plans to invest in around 2,000 new flood defence schemes through the programme.

Mr Ferguson said current flood prevention measures near to the River Great Ouse - which has affected roads like Mill Lane between St Neots and Little Paxton - must be improved.

"It's controlled by sluices, gates and flood alleviation schemes, all of which are at the end of their useful life," he said.

"We don't have many plans to fix them and so investing in that infrastructure is really important.

"With climate change making these events more frequent, I think it's a significant problem and we live in one of the most low-lying regions in the country, so we have to take this very seriously."

'No easy way around this'

Earlier this month, county councillors heard the Environment Agency would be carrying out a ‘Great Ouse Strategic Intervention Study’ to better understand the current and future flood risk from river and surface water sources across the Great Ouse Catchment.

Mr Ferguson praised the Environment Agency for its work with the resources they have in flood prevention across the East of England.

But the issue of flooding remains.

"There's no easy way around this, so I'm desperate that we seriously look at the issue of flooding across our region," he added.

The Government has said plans to invest in flood defences between this and next year should be reviewed due to "significant funding pressures".

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