WEST Somerset’s MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has welcomed news of an early start on a major flood defence programme to help fire up the economy in the wake of lockdown.

Defra Secretary George Eustice has signalled the release of an extra £170 million to accelerate work on 22 already-approved projects as a way of creating jobs and energising the construction sector.

The money is in addition to the £5.2 billion the Government has already announced to better protect a further 336,000 properties by 2027.

Mr Eustice has also published a new Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Policy Statement for England which represents the most comprehensive update for a decade to the national effort to combat erosion.

But Mr Liddell-Grainger said policy statements were no substitutes for action – and with every winter that passed the erosion threat at scores of vulnerable locations was clearly increasing.

He said he was encouraged the Government had recognised the need to overhaul the entire flood protection programme.

“In my constituency, we have had long and painful experience of Government inaction, and in particular of a Government agency telling us no action at all was necessary to combat a growing flood risk - right up to the point where that risk was translated into the worst flooding for centuries,” he said.

“I know dozens of communities up and down the country – particularly those which have experienced repeated flooding in the last few years – will be grateful for the early start announced for those schemes already in the pipeline.

“But I question whether we need any more management policy statements when the evidence is already there; when homes and infrastructure are under heightened erosion threat; and when it is accepted that more extreme weather is going to become the norm as the climate changes.

“When bits of the UK are already being washed away by rivers or – as in my own constituency – falling into the sea, we no longer have the luxury of time to decide what our long-term approach might be.

“We absolutely must begin serious, project-by-project planning now and find the necessary resources to start work quickly as soon as that planning is completed.

“It may be difficult at the moment to identity how these projects will be funded. But the lesson we have learned very painfully in Somerset is that it is better to spend a relatively modest amount of money curing a problem when it is still manageable rather than facing catastrophically higher costs at the point where it finally becomes uncontrollable.”