There have been devastating floods almost every year since 2002. According to the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017, increased flooding is one of the main risks we face from the effects of climate change in the future.
We therefore believe that flooding needs to be made a national priority.
Floods are not “unprecedented” and substantial and sensible long term investment is needed to ensure that people, property, businesses, infrastructure, utilities and services are better protected. All parts of government and society have an important role to play and we need to rapidly move to a position where this is accepted.
We collectively need to recognise the scale of the problem and change our approach so that all parts of Government and society actively contribute to managing flood risk.
In order that we raise our ambition to meet the future challenge of managing and reducing flood risk, the National Flood Forum believes the following should be prioritised:
A national strategy and clear targets are needed so that we know what we are aiming to achieve and how we’re going to get there.