Future investment in flood defences will require greater contributions from communities and businesses, Environment Agency Chief Executive Dr Paul Leinster will say in a speech today.

Speaking at the Defra/Environment Agency Flood and Coastal Risk Management conference in Telford, Dr Leinster will say that local contributions to the funding of flood defences will have to play a greater role in reducing the risk of flood and coastal erosion. His comments echo calls made by Sir Michael Pitt in his independent review of the summer 2007 floods.

Environment Agency spending on flood and coastal risk management is currently at record levels (£629m for 2010-11). However, other sources of funding will need to be found to protect communities from increasing risk of flooding and coastal erosion including from changes in climate in future. (more…)

Rare reconnaissance photographs of the 1953 floods which engulfed large parts of East Anglia have come to light.

The pictures were shot by the RAF and, until recently, some of them were classified.

Watch the video clip on the BBC News website

AN innovative scheme to save a vulnerable stretch of coastline from the ravages of the sea is now complete – and just in the nick of time if this latest photograph is anything to go by.

Work to protect the cliffs, Martello Tower and two homes in East Lane, Bawdsey, near Woodbridge, has finally finished following years of uncertainty.

Campaigners feared the coastline would be swept away and large areas of low lying farmland would be flooded if nothing was done.

But the defence scheme was low on a list of national priorities and the Government said it could not pay for any work.

As result the East Lane Trust (ELT) was formed and the group came up with a ground breaking community project to raise the vital funds. (more…)

CONSULTANTS are to be appointed to draw up the detailed proposals for the next multi-million pound sea defence scheme to protect homes at Felixstowe from the sea.

Experts say 525 homes, 99 businesses, the prom, Spa Pavilion and its historic gardens, a coast road and the resort’s main sewer could be at risk of being washed away. (more…)

AREAS of the Suffolk coast will not be abandoned “unless it is absolutely necessary”, the chairman of the Environment Agency said yesterday as he held a series of meetings with groups concerned at plans to stop maintaining some of the estuary defences.

Lord Smith, who was flown by helicopter up the coast from Bawdsey to Easton Bavents, said he wanted the agency to work with local communities to identify the best solutions and find funding from a variety of possible sources.

“We want to make sure we protect as much as possible. We need to agree solutions for each individual estuary. I certainly don’t want to abandon anything unless we absolutely have to,” he said. (more…)

SEA defence campaigners will today urge top decision-makers to help remove legal barriers to enable public-private partnerships to “hold the line” on the Suffolk coast for at least the next 20 years.

Lord Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, is due to see the eroding coastline and meet groups which are opposing the agency’s plans to phase out the maintenance of flood walls in Suffolk’s estuaries.

The agency – working within updated guidelines issued by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – believes the work would not be sustainable and cannot be justified, economically or environmentally, especially in the face of rising sea levels.

However, campaigners will today call on Lord Smith to help local authorities and landowners to “hold the line” for the next 20 years to allow more knowledge to be developed about coastal trends. (more…)

The unique partnership that came together to provide much-needed coastal defence works around East Lane, Bawdsey is celebrating the news that work should get underway this month.

Because the defence works were low on the list of priorities for national funding, an innovative community partnership was created which has helped raise the money by building homes on three nearby sites. (more…)