Michael Gove has been speaking about climate change.
Climate change will mean that flooding in the UK will become more frequent and more severe…. Not good news.
Generally people expect flooding to be a winter issue. However, hotter summers combined with increased rainfall will lead to flash flooding in the summer too.
Key quotes from Michael Gove’s speech include:
- “It will not always be possible to prevent every flood,”
- “We cannot build defences to protect every single building or reinforce every retreating coastline”
- “We can encourage every local area to strive for greater overall resilience”
- “We need our communities and infrastructure to be better prepared for floods and coastal change, so that they recover more quickly from the damage
In 2019, Defra will publish a long-term policy statement on flooding and coastal erosion and the Environment Agency will issue a new 50-year flood strategy. Michael Gove said it should “explore new philosophies”, going beyond traditional flood defences such as sea and river walls and other “hard” barriers.
Obviously we’ll be reading more about this in 2019 but you can read the original article here
