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…)

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…)