If the government had to compensate homeowners whose houses would be lost to the sea under proposals for parts of Broadland, it would soon realise it was cheaper to shore up our defences, writes former boatyard owner and major company director JOHN BROWN.

The present policy of the government on flood protection appears to be one purely of money and a lack of interest in any area away from the large centres of population. Nothing new in that, you may say, but this is especially short-term and ignores principles basic to our society.

The practical policy seems to be, and this applies to governments of all political shades, to give the government the option of not being under pressure to spend money on flood protection projects.

Of great assistance to Defra and the Environment Agency has been, for more than 30 years, their system of establishing whether a project is worth doing.

They call it “benefit/cost” and it is used as something of a comfort blanket by them. Improvements have been made over the years but, unless the change is recent, they have not been prepared to make the most radical one necessary.

The basic problem is that one of the major costs of flooding has been deliberately excluded from the calculation. In one case of which I am aware, this reduced the nominal cost of flooding by more than 90pc. No wonder the government can say: “It is not worth defending!”

It appears to be a case of ‘please do not confuse me with the facts, I have already made up my mind’. A case which appeared on television after the York flooding of a few years ago makes the point. The owner of a carpet sales business lost all of his stock. High value though his stocks were, he complained that it would be six months before he could resume business and that this was his biggest problem.

It was his consequential loss which represented his biggest loss and which is ignored by the system.

It might be argued that he could always move to another place and resume business and this might be true (ignoring whether the costs of paying for two premises would make his business non-viable) but if you return to the Norfolk Broads situation, you have to ask, ‘How can you move a boatyard?’

The Environment Agency’s system is, of course, a sham. The question is much more simple: Is what you are proposing to protect worth more or less than the cost of providing the protection?

Take the case of the village of Scratby. Erosion is threatening the village and it was proposed by the local council to undertake a feasibility study into an artificial reef similar to those which have already been installed off Sea Palling. The cost of the study was estimated to be £30,000. The rough estimate of the cost of the reef was £30m. The Environment Agency immediately stated it would not fund such a reef.

The council then said there was no point in carrying out the study. What happened to “benefit/cost”?

Let us say that the reef would last 20 years, the cost would be £1.5m per annum – about the cost of, say, four bungalows, if you are lucky. For this the government is prepared to sacrifice a whole village? Need I say more?

Natural England recently announced long-term proposals for allowing the sea to flood 25 square miles of Norfolk, including four villages and one of the most important wetland conservation areas in the country. Present policy would allow no compensation, of
course.

A brief look at the map will show that this would produce a very much longer coastline which could well be much more difficult to defend than the present one. Given a good easterly gale you could well have Norwich-on-Sea. Now, call me an old cynic, but a wash land of this size
might just take some pressure off the Thames Barrier.

The most disgraceful aspect is that the government refuses to compensate those whose property is lost to the sea. We, as a nation, have been defending ourselves from the sea for more than 500 years. It is clear that defence has been the nation’s policy writ large for most of the country.

Of course, there are areas where there has been no defence and it could be argued that anyone buying or building a property close to the coast knew the risk. Quite another matter is the situation where, historically, defence has been provided.

Here, those people affected had no reason to doubt that the policy would be continued. Certainly, there was no warning of a prospective change of policy. It is, of course, obvious why
the government will not compensate citizens whose property is lost.

If it did, it would be cheaper to provide defence. Which exposes the policy for what it is: a cheap and shameful way of not spending money.

When the floods of 1953 occurred, the defences were repaired and, by and large, have done their job for more than 50 years. The defences were afforded because it was felt that they had to be.

At the time, the country had an economy about a quarter the size it is now, had a housebuilding
programme that made the present efforts look puny, had a post-war baby boom of epic proportions and was building schools and hospitals on top of general post-war rebuilding. A truly prodigious effort!

As I remember, it was maintaining very large armed forces, was also fighting a couple of colonial insurgencies and looking after Palestine.

Apart from the two wars we are now fighting, nothing compares with the 1953 scenario. We are vastly better off, yet now, it seems, we can’t afford to protect ourselves from the sea.

The best we seem to be able to do is launch initiatives such as the pathetic Environment Agency poster campaign which told us: “You can’t prevent flooding, so prepare for it.”

This was quietly dropped when some of us asked whether they had noticed what the Dutch had done.

It could be that in 100 years or so we will be forced to give up land to the sea, but if and when this happens it should be on a planned basis, with secure fallback sea defences and proper compensation for those adversely affected.

It only needs a bit of vision and determination, but maybe this is asking too much of this, or of any other, government.

Finally, having dealt over the years with bodies such as the Environment Agency, I can warn those who will be trying to negotiate on our behalf that it is a bit like kicking a large ball of
cotton wool.

Your main reward may only be a tired leg! Good luck anyway!

Printed in the Eastern Daily Press.