Press Release

9 January 2007

Paice Concern At Cuts To Local Flood Defence Budget

South East Cambridgeshire MP Jim Paice has expressed his concern at the 34% cut to the region’s flood defence budget, announced on Monday 7 January.

The flood defence budget allocated from national funds to the Central Area for 2007/08, which includes Cambridgeshire, is £19 million - £6.4 million below that for 2006/07.

Mr Paice said: “Cutting the region’s flood defence budget by a third will make communities even more vulnerable from extreme weather conditions, at a time when these are becoming all too common.” 

Robert Price, Chairman of the Anglian (Central) Regional Flood Defence Committee has acknowledged that due to the cuts, “we won't be able to do all that we would have liked to in 2007/8”.

“I am concerned that these cuts – which are the result of Defra’s bungling, notably at the Rural Payments Agency – will limit the work the regional flood defence committee believe is necessary to protect local people.” 

Official information obtained by Mr Paice has revealed just how Cambridgeshire’s climate is changing. Answers to a parliamentary written question reveal that in 1986 the county’s mean temperature was 9.03oC. In 2005 it was 10.77oC.