Repairs 'to cost £45m' after storms hit county

Repairs to damage caused by extreme weather in Lincolnshire over the past year will cost £45m, the Environment Agency (EA) has said.

Hundreds of homes were flooded during Storm Babet, last October, and Storm Henk, in January.

A spokesperson for the EA said it had allocated £16m from its capital budget for repairs and believed that this would allow 23 projects to be completed by March next year.

However, when asked by the BBC about a timescale for the remaining repairs, the EA said it was unable to provide one while discussions were ongoing.

Fiskerton, near Lincoln, was among the communities badly affected by flooding during Storm Babet.

Residents were told to evacuate their homes after the banks of the River Witham were breached. Further damage was caused in February this year.

Questions were raised about repairs to the bank during a meeting of Lincolnshire County Council's Flood and Water Management Scrutiny Committee, on 24 June, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Councillor Ian Fleetwood said he had been told that the damage would be fixed by Christmas. However, the EA was unable to confirm this.

A spokesperson for the agency said: “We are currently working with our framework contractors to develop the plan for repairing the asset in Fiskerton. Once we have a timescale, we will communicate with relevant stakeholders.

“In the meantime, we are continuing localised monitoring to ensure we can detect any increase in risk early and will work with partners to take action accordingly.”

Councillor Colin Davie, the council's portfolio holder for economic development, environment and planning, has called on the new government to urgently address flooding.

He said a much greater focus needed to be placed on "strategic investment" around flood management.

“It is no longer acceptable that we can spend tens of billions of pounds investing in green technologies if we don’t address the outcomes of weather impacts and climate change that are happening today," he added.

A spokesperson for the EA said it did not have regional investment targets and all schemes were "carefully assessed to make sure they benefit the most people and property".

Investment in flood risk management schemes "takes place where the risk is highest, wherever it is across the country", the spokesperson added.

The BBC has asked the EA to provide details of the 23 repair projects earmarked to be completed by March next year.

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