Cash 'hasn't helped flood defences'

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The Public Accounts Committee said the flooding across the Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside in June this year and in the South West the following month, demonstrated the "vulnerability" of key infrastructure.

More than half the high-risk flood defence systems protecting English towns and cities are not being maintained at their target condition, it added.

In its fourth report, Environment Agency: Building and maintaining river and coastal flood defences in England, the committee said that in 2007-08 just 33 new defence schemes are expected to start, with 84% of funds spent on existing schemes. It said the agency was "not able to show that its maintenance teams were deployed efficiently or that they focused their resources on high risk flood defence systems".

It took the agency six years to complete its first six Catchment Flood Management Plans and the entire programme of 68 plans is unlikely to be completed until December 2008.

The committee states: "Despite an increase in funding from £303 million in 2001-02 to £550 million in 2005-06, spending fell to £483 million in 2006-07 (an increase in real terms of some 40% in five years), the state of flood defences in England has not improved markedly.

"The funds available for starting new defence schemes are limited, as most are already committed to ongoing schemes. In 2007-08, only 33 new projects are expected to start, at a cost of £20.2 million, with 84% of funds utilised on existing schemes.

"Some flood defences remain in a poor condition and over half of the high risk flood defence systems, such as those protecting urban areas, are not in their target condition, with consequent risks should a flood occur."

It said this year's floods "demonstrated the real danger, damage and misery such events cause. The report recommends that the agency makes better use of existing funding, such as targeting money based on "thorough assessments", allocating maintenance funds on the estimated risk of flooding and its potential costs.

It also calls on the agency to "reduce programme and project development costs when constructing new defences.