It is clear from the breaking news that the floods in Cockermouth have been extremely severe. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn claims they are a one in a thousand year event. Yet only in 2005 the town was also hit by severe flooding and £38m million spent improving flood defenses.What is undoubted is that the flooding will increase public pressure for further expenditure on flood defense. Its ironic that in October the Cockermouth flood defense team met to approve new expenditure but because of EA funding constraints the work was not scheduled til next June.
The debate about whether the flooding is a really a 1 in a 1000 event or given climate change something much more frequent is highly important. Its easy for politicians to make these statements but once the immediate crisis subsides careful thought and consideration must be given to whether these floods represent a new reality for the UK.
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