South Yorkshire floods one year on: county 'short changed' on defences
The Sheffield City Region Mayor's pushing for more funding
Last updated 6th Nov 2020
A year after hundreds of homes were deluged, The Sheffield City Region Mayor tells us South Yorkshire's been "short changed" on flood protection.
12 months ago today a month's worth of rain fell in 24 hours and the River Don burst its banks.
Hundreds of homes and businesses were flooded, mainly in Doncaster.
Ever since there have been calls for better protection for communities along the river like Bentley and Fishlake which were badly affected.
South Yorkshire's Metro Mayor Dan Jarvis tells us he's pushing government for more funding for defences:
"We've drawn together the basis of a flooding priority programme.
"The government has an important role to play in terms of resourcing that but I'm doing everything I possibly can to make sure that those communitites that were devastated exactly a year ago get the support and the protection they need.
"I think that we've been short-changed in recent years. I don't think we've had the investment that we've needed and I think we've had investment at a lower rate than other parts of the country."
Last month he held a long-awaited flooding summit with ministers, which had been promised in the aftermath of the disaster last November.
Dan says the process has taken too long, but finally he has the attention of the government:
"There are still people who were flooded in South Yorkshire a year ago who have not yet got back into their properties. So yes it's been incredibly frustrating for them and for all of us who want to move this issue along as quickly as we can, that it is taking so long.
"Covid has not helped but I think the government could have moved more quickly than they have done."
Meanwhile work is underway in those areas affected to repair and improve defences since the floods a year ago.
The Environment Agency tells us it's looking at 'all possibilities' to prevent a repeat of 2019.
Helen Batt is the agency's Flood Risk Manager for South Yorkshire:
"There's work happening on the ground - there are lots of things happening in Fishlake at the moment. We're doing some work there to improve the riverside enbankment, so that's the first line of defence.
"And in Bentley there's a large pumping station which pumps water away from homes and that's undergoing a large scale refurbishment.
"The work that we've done has improved flood defences in communities since last year.
"And we've got other projects either on the ground in construction now or being planned looking at all possibilities to improve flood defences, but also looking at the landscape and how can we manage it so it that is slows the flow at the top of the catchment."
Before last year's floods, the last time South Yorkshire had been badly hit was in 2007.
Since then, tens of millions of pounds was spent on new defences, mainly in Sheffield.
Many flood victims last year said the city had been protected at the expense of communities further down the River Don which suffered as a result.
Helen says that's not the case:
"We legally cannot build a scheme that then increases flood risk for others. Since 2007 we've spend £44 million of government funding on defences across South Yorkshire.
"In 2007, around 5,000 properties were impacted whereas in 2019 the numbers of properties were lower."