Flood threat may result in people being relocated

Michael Gove has said that climate change will make flooding more likely and severe across the UK, warning that people may have to be moved away from high-risk areas as a result.

Speaking to an audience of Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs stakeholders, the Environment Secretary announced the biggest review of climate change in Britain for nearly a decade before expressing concerns over flooding becoming the key way in which changes would become manifest in the UK.

With the government spending £2.6 billion on flood defences between 2015 and 2021, aiming to protect 300,000 homes from flooding by that date, Gove stressed the need for communities and infrastructure to be better prepared for floods and coastal change, in order that they recover more quickly from the damage and disruption.

New measures to protect from flooding will include natural defences such as planting trees, restoring heathland and installing ‘leaky dams’, with Defra set to publish a long-term policy statement on flooding and coastal erosion next year alongside the publication of a new 50-year flood strategy from the Environment Agency.

Gove said: “It will not always be possible to prevent every flood. We cannot build defences to protect every single building or reinforce every retreating coastline. We will be looking at ways we can encourage every local area to strive for greater overall resilience that takes into account all the different levers from land-use planning to better water storage upstream, and tackles both flood prevention and response.”

Using the latest science from the Met Office and around the world, the UK Climate Projections 2018 illustrate a range of future climate scenarios until 2100 – showing increasing summer temperatures, more extreme weather and rising sea levels are all on the horizon and urgent international action is needed.