Selby district flood cash welcomed

Councillor David Jeffels, who is joint chairman of the York and North Yorkshire Flood Protection Committee, said a new committee would help large areas of the Selby district.

Cllr Jeffels said: "The scope of the plan has now been expanded to cover the Selby district which is an encouraging move. The reason for this is that historically, the impact of flooding incidents in the Selby area have impacted on the Humber.

"The committee was advised by Helen Todd, of the Environment Agency that there are some 400,000 people living in flood risk areas in the Humber area, affecting 205,000 properties and 32,500 businesses, and 115,000 hectares of land. There are already 230 flood defence schemes in the Humber area already and major spending is planned over the next few years. By 2032 it is estimated that £320m will need to be spent."

The new Humber Flood Risk Committee will provide progress on the Humber Strategy, which includes a scheme to spend £75m on flood storage areas to protect 30,000 households.

The committee will review the current defences, to cover flood protection over the next century in and around the Selby district.

Cllr Jeffels said: "Selby has become involved because the flooding has an impact on areas further up stream so the boundary of the strategy has been extended to include Selby, Chapel Haddlesey and another village, involved about 200 properties. The new strategy review will start in January 2017 and will cover the period up to 2021.

"In parallel with the strategy will be a six year new programme of investment costing some £86m which will in total protect 50,000 properties. The strategy involved modelling of schemes, an options assessment, funding and formal consultation."

Cllr Jeffels said a landscape and investment study was being carried out, along with research into funding bids including Third Party contributions, as well as funding from the Environment Agency and other organisations.