Climate Change puts more UK houses at risk – report
30/1/2010 Guardian More than half a million homes are at significant risk of flooding and the cost of protecting them will double to £1bn a year by 2035, according to data from the environment agency.The increasing costs will arise from the impact of climate change over the comingdecades. The risk to communities will grow unless defences are improved, and the cost of dealing with floods will run
into the billions – the devastating summer floods of 2007 cost a total of E3.2bn, according to the agency.
The agency estimates that 5 million people live in the 2.4m properties in England which are at some risk of flooding. At present about £570m is spent each year on constructing and maintaining the buildings’ defences. Haifa million of these properties are in highest risk band, at risk of flooding due to extreme weather expected once every 75 years.
Climate scientists predict that, by the 2080s, sea levels could be about 70cm (27in) higher around the southern parts of the UK, making serious storm surges and floods more frequent.
Using predictions from the UK Climate Impacts Programme, the agency estimates that to keep all 2.4m at-risk homes at the existing level of flood risk for the next 25 years will cost £1bn a year by 2035.
“Assuming that no new properties are addingto that risk, then thatinvestment is to maintain the existing infrastr ucture and to invest to make sure it isn’t worsened, taking into account the uncertainties of climate change,” said Robert Runcie, the agency’s director of flood and coastal risk management.
In an evidence to the Commons environmental audit committee (EAC) last week, Chris Smith, the agency’s chairman, said: “What we know from the science of climate change is that weather patterns are going to become more extreme. The risk is going to get greater, and we need to up our game in response to that.
“The case for flood defence is very strong. {In al cost-benefit of any flood defence work we do the benefit is at least five times the cost. The average cost to a home, of being flooded, is £20,000£30,000. The average cost to a home ofbeing burgled is about £1,000. So the damage that flooding does in terms of its impact on people’s livelihoods is huge.”
Smith said the Treasury had agreed with the agency’s conclusions. “What they have not done, of course, is commit the actual figures, and that is unlikely to happen this side of an election or, I suspect, the other.”
Not spending the money could have even bigger consequences. The agency estimates that the annual cost of damage to residential and commercial property from flooding in England could rise from £2.Sbn to £4bn by 2035, without the extra cash for flood defences. Investing the moneywould save England some £180bn over the next 100 years.
“Evenata time of unprecedented financial pressure this is something that has to be given a priority,” said the Tory MP Tim Yeo, who is chairman of EAC.
Runcie said that flood management in futurewould rely on careful planningand stopping the erection of new buildings on flood plains. “One of the things that’s made a huge difference … is a change to the planning laws where, only last year, we became a formal consultee. In the last 12 months, of the thousands of applications for major developments that have been proposed, only 4% went against our recommendations.”
A Treasury spokeswoman said the government would decide on expenditure and flood-risk management at the next spending review. The outlay on flood and coastal erosion risk management had increased in recent years, from £394m. in 2002-03 to E564m in 2005-06.