England spends nearly four times more on activities that may cause flooding than it invests to combat flooding, a think tank says.
It says £1.5bn went on subsidies for farm management that ignores or increases flood risk, while help from the EU farm policy for land management that reduces flooding totals £419m.
Green Alliance said money was being spent “in ways that are perverse.”
The government said natural flood management plays “an important role”.
Currently farmers get grants based on the amount of land they own.
The report wants farmers to be rewarded for:
- Allowing trees and vegetation to slow water flow
- Creating healthy soils to absorb water
- Allowing rivers to meander, to slow the flow
- Creating wetlands to retain water
- Keeping floodplains to provide space for rivers to overflow safely
The Green Alliance research goes further, though, by calculating the balance between spending on flood prevention and flood repairs.
It concludes that £613m is spent on the after-effects of flooding, whilst hard flood defences receive less than half that – £269m.
Source: Flood spending decisions ‘perverse’, Green Alliance says – BBC News
