I can also give you an update, Mr Stuart, but I would like to give my hon. Friend an update, too. The EA recently completed the project to refurbish a section of the floodwall on the River Rother that was damaged during Storm Babet, and £75,000 of DEFRA flood defence funding has been allocated to the avenue for the storage reservoir, which my hon. Friend and I visited together. As he rightly said, it operated during Storm Babet, but there was still widespread flooding downstream.
That funding will allow the EA to investigate any improvements that can be made to how it operates to hopefully reduce more flood risks. The Environment Agency is working with the council to investigate the removal or raising of several bridges along the Rivers Hipper and Rother. That is at an early stage, but it will help us look at how to improve flow and reduce the risk of blockages, which is an issue that was raised previously.
In addition, the Environment Agency, Derbyshire county council and the Don Catchment Rivers Trust are exploring natural flood management opportunities for the Hipper and Spital Brook catchments—my hon. Friend knows I am a fan of natural flood management; I will come to the flood funding formula and how that can enable natural flood management. They have also secured just under £400,000 of funding towards the River Hipper flood alleviation scheme to support the development of the business case, so they are on to the development stage of the project. It includes £275,000 of local levy from the Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee and £60,000 from Chesterfield borough council. The scheme will protect over 200 homes and businesses.
Pre our funding formula review, at this moment, the scheme is estimated to cost £16 million, with a funding gap of under £40 million, but that is under the current rules. However, that could change as a result of our funding rules. I will say a bit more about our funding consultation. The current approach to the flood funding formula was drawn up by the previous Government in 2011, and is outdated and not working as it should. It neglects more innovative approaches such as natural flood management. In fact, the solution the previous Government had was to set a separate fund for natural flood management rather than integrating it into how the formula works as a whole.
Our proposed change looks at full Government funding for the first £3 million of projects. That unlocks lots of natural flood management because many smaller natural flood management schemes are less than £3 million; they are struggling because they cannot get the partnership funding to close the gap. Fully funding projects up to £3 million means we can get on with the smaller schemes. Then there is a flat rate of 90% Government contribution and 10% partnership funding. If the project of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield is successful with the business case, it would be looking at 90% Government funding and having to find 10% partnership funding, which is very different from the current situation.
We would also fully fund the refurbishment of existing flood assets. Understandably, people say, “Why do we need partnership funding to maintain an asset that already exists?” Our flooding formula consultation says that we would fully fund refurbishment of assets as well.
The changes make natural flood management much easier. However, that means that many projects move through to the prioritisation stage. The first stage is: does it meet the tests to go through to prioritisation? Then there is prioritisation; even though we are putting a record amount of money into flooding, there is a certain amount there to be allocated, so the consultation looks at prioritisation. What do we want to prioritise when deciding which projects go ahead and which do not? Are we looking at very basic value for money in terms of numbers of properties protected? That would have an impact on rural communities. Are we looking at prioritising natural flood management? Are we looking at prioritising areas of deprivation? What are the prioritisation criteria? That is what the consultation asks. Are we prioritising “frequently flooded” as another criterion, to put weighting towards which ones actually go through to be built?
The consultation is happening at the moment. At this moment, I cannot say whether it would make it easier or harder for my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield to get his scheme developed. But the partnership funding that has held up my hon. Friend’s scheme would be dealt with under our consultation, because 90% would be Government funding and 10% would be partnership.
We need to prioritise which ones are done first. The consultation is genuinely open in listening to people about the criteria they want to prioritise. We obviously have to be really careful when spending any Government money and need a fair and transparent system when it comes to which projects get built first and which do not.
As has been mentioned, we are investing a record amount: £4.2 billion over three years to build, maintain and repair existing flood defences. That is a 5% increase in our annual average investment compared with our existing spend, which was already a record amount. I hope that demonstrates the Government’s commitment and sense of urgency. The current funding will continue to support 1,000 flood schemes, better protecting 52,000 homes and businesses by March 2026. On top of that, a further 14,500 properties will have their expected level of protection maintained or restored through essential maintenance activities.
As my hon. Friends know, we inherited flood defences in their worst state on record. The condition of key flood defences in England was at its lowest since the financial year 2009-10, with only 92% of assets at the required condition. In the current financial year, we are putting £430 million into constructing new schemes, and using a further £220 million to restore flood defences to the condition that they need to be in. That full list was published in March. Last week, we announced £7.9 billion of funding, which is the largest flooding programme in history, as part of our landmark infrastructure strategy.
We are introducing many other changes, but I can see that I am running out of time. On compulsory purchasing, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield recognises that the Environment Agency can compulsory purchase something only if it is for building a specific scheme. Sadly, he and others around the country have raised the problem of properties devaluing when they are continually at risk of flooding. I wonder whether in those particular circumstances, which I saw for myself, there is another conversation to be had about property flood resilience measures and whether more can be done to support those homes.
We have had a radical change with our flooding formula. It has made the system much simpler, so that people around the country can clearly understand that the first £3 million will be fully funded, and after that it will be 90% Government and 10% partnership funding. That is intended to equalise the system everywhere, because at the moment nobody quite understands why one scheme may have a partnership funding gap of £40 million, as in my hon. Friend’s case, and another may have no partnership funding gap at all. This formula makes the system much clearer.
I urge everybody to respond to the flooding consultation and to think about how they want Government money to be prioritised, so that we can protect as many people as possible from the devastating impact of flooding, which causes such a problem not only for the local economy but for mental health. We will continue to build and repair flood defences while delivering natural flood management and sustainable drainage systems, and we will make sure that this country is more resilient to floods.
Question put and agreed to.