Flood-risk rural communities lose out to towns

The Environment Agency has told a Catholic audience that flood-hit rural communities can suffer when attention is focused on preventing flooding in urban areas, writes Isabel de Bertodano.

Speaking to the National Conference for Rural Catholics this week, Nick Hardiman, senior coastal policy officer at the agency, described a “perfect storm” of events leading to the huge flooding across parts of southern England.

“There is a big issue around rural communities because people who choose to live in more remote areas sometimes lose out when it comes to flood defences,” said Hardiman, adding that in future rural communities needed to be better prepared and flood plans should be much more widely and thoroughly used.

“People need to be more resilient,” he said. “They need to do more future planning, for example looking at types of flooring used in vulnerable houses, building electricity sockets halfway up the wall and raising shelving.”

The Government has promised the Environment Agency an extra £130 million on top of its budget to deal with the floods, though Hardiman said it was uncertain when the money would be delivered.

Attending the conference were priests and parishioners from Somerset, one of the places worst hit by flooding.

Also present was the Bishop of East Anglia, Alan Hopes, who said that having been in urban dioceses for many years he was shocked by the distances encompassed by rural parishes.
“Unfortunately we haven’t enough priests to cover the ground and I can already see that our parish priests are doing more than they ought,” he said.