|
Government should distribute EU flooding compensation cash
speedily
Thames Valley
European MP James Elles has said that now the European
Parliament has voted for a £123 million payment for areas
affected by last summer’s flooding, the UK Government must move
speedily to distribute the cash, especially to cash-strapped
local government.
The cash, which
is paid directly to the Government, is intended to assist with
the reconstruction of key infrastructure following the
devastating rainfall across the UK last June and July, estimated
to have caused around £3.48 billion worth of damage. The money
has to be allocated in one year and the Government would need to
justify how it was spent six months after that.
Mr Elles, who
has special Conservative responsibility for the counties of
Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, said: “The
Parliament voted by a large majority for the £123 million
payment from the EU Solidarity Fund. The counties of Berkshire
and Oxfordshire were badly hit. In Berkshire this involved
particularly serious flooding in Reading, West Berkshire
and
Wokingham and in Oxfordshire the worst affected areas were
Abingdon, Banbury, Didcot, Oxford and West Oxfordshire.
“Now the
payment has been sanctioned, I hope the Government will get on
with the job of distributing the money as quickly as possible,
particularly to local councils who were hard hit by costs at the
time of the flooding.”
Last September
Mr Elles gave a graphic account of flooding in the Thames Valley
to the European Parliament. In last month’s budgets committee
he called for future EU funding to cover flood prevention,
something currently not within the remit of the EU Solidarity
Fund. He is conscious, having visited flood affected areas,
that flood prevention schemes would cost a tiny percentage of
the damage caused last summer. |
