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London 'won't be flood-proof despite £140m on defences'
Ruth Bloomfield17 Aug 2009
London will never be "flood-proof" despite a taxpayer investment of £140million to improve river defences, officials said today.
The Environment Agency warned it could never fully protect the city against "Mother Nature" as it unveiled details of a five-year project to bring flood barriers up to scratch.
Andy Batchelor, the agency's area flood manager, urged residents to check if they live in a flood-risk area, saying: "London's defences are good, but we cannot give a guarantee. We are talking about Mother Nature.
"All we can do is manage the risk and the Government is certainly putting the funding in, but no one can say they are definitely safe. What we need to do is try to raise awareness in the same way that people are aware of fire."
The Environment Agency will carry out 50 schemes across the capital over the next five years, as it attempts to combat the effect of global warming and rising sea levels.
They range from millions of pounds of repairs to shore up the Thames Barrier to smaller schemes to protect homes from Putney in the south-west to Enfield in the north.
Key projects to be carried out between now and 2013 include £8.93million repairs to the defences around the Deptford Creek which will protect almost 34,000 homes from the threat of flood, and £9.7million flood management works at Salmon's Brook in Enfield to protect 1,600 homes.
Projects costing a total of £33million are planned for the Thames Barrier. The agency calculates that more than 16,000 households will be protected as a result.
Mr Batchelor said the barrier had the ability to protect London until 2070, but that a second barrier downstream, possibly at Dartford, might one day have to be built. In the meantime, he said, families living in flood risk areas should prepare for flood by working out in advance the best escape route to high ground. They should also sign up for Environment Agency text alerts to get advance warning of the need to evacuate and offering to help elderly and vulnerable neighbours.
"It is not sustainable to just keep on building bigger and bigger defences," he added. "Ultimately we have to give our rivers room to grow, and the planning authorities will have to recognise this."
