Pay farmers to save towns from flooding, say MPs
Farmers should be paid incentives to allow water storage on their land in a bid to reduce flooding problems in urban areas, an influential group of MPs has advised.
The environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) select committee has warned that five million people across England are at risk of flooding and there must be an overhaul of flood management strategy to deal with the problem.
In a report issued on Wednesday (2 November), the committee called for a range of measures to tackle the risk of flooding, including a consultation on a payment scheme for farmers which it said should be carried out before July 2017.
See also: Farmers count the cost of flood misery
While farmers were naturally wary of allowing their land to be out of production for long periods, storing water on farmland was a cost-effective means of reducing flood risk, said the cross-party group of MPs.
The committee pointed out that evidence supplied to it during its inquiry suggested that the cost of a flood affecting an urban area was £2.5m/ha higher than for a flood affecting agricultural land.
“Defra should put flood risk management at the centre of any new support schemes for farmers which replace the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) framework,” it concluded.
The report said developing a robust payment scheme would require an accurate assessment of the cost to the farmer of submerging their land and the value of reduced damage to downstream land and property.
It suggested the NFU should carry out some preliminary work before the end of the year on the way forward in this area.
Leaky dams
Other recommendations in the report included a large-catchment trial of the effectiveness of natural flood risk management approaches, such as the installation of leaky dams, extra tree planting and improved soil management.
These measures have been used to good effect to protect the Yorkshire town of Pickering.
The report also called for a new governance structure so that responsibility for preventing floods is handed to a national floods commissioner for England.
Farmer reaction
Oxfordshire farmer Tim Hook, whose land has been flooded regularly over the past 10 years, said he could support a floodwater storage scheme if the payments were pitched correctly and it addressed any possible fall in asset value.
It was an idea worth considering, he said, as he was effectively already forced to take the water, but was not being paid to do so.
“We are already being used as a parking place for water to protect the more expensive properties [in Oxford, Abingdon and Henley] downstream,” he said.
“And while we can deal with flooding for up to two weeks, after that everything dies. So it needs to reflect the fact that agricultural land has a value, too.”
Mr Hook said any scheme also needed to make it simple for farmers to make a claim.
“We don’t want to be jumping through hoops and then waiting for 18 months for the money.”