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Suffolk County Council requests extra £20 million from Government for flood relief




Concerns remain over communities left in a ‘limbo land’ after £1.5 million was invested into flood relief.

On Tuesday, members of Suffolk County Council’s cabinet decided to invest £1.5 million of the authority’s reserves to mitigate the impacts of flooding across the worst-hit communities during last year’s extreme rainfall events.

But Cllr Paul West, the county’s lead for highways and flood, said the money was still ‘bound to be dwarfed by the money that’s needed’.

A flooded car park in the wake of Storm Babet. Picture: Suffolk County Council
A flooded car park in the wake of Storm Babet. Picture: Suffolk County Council

Both he and the council’s leader, Matthew Hicks, have also recently written to new flooding minister Emma Hardy MP requesting an extra £20 million boost to deal with the works needed.

The letter read: “Our communities are quite rightly asking whether these commitments are enough to mitigate the risk of them experiencing the catastrophic flooding of last October again.

“Our initial assessments suggest the real cost of this much-needed flood prevention could well exceed a further £20 million, funding the county council simply cannot afford.”

Suffolk County Council leader Matthew Hicks
Suffolk County Council leader Matthew Hicks

Following last October’s Storm Babet, the worst flooding event in more than 50 years, and the storms which followed, the council has been conducting investigations into how to mitigate future flood risk where five or more properties were flooded within a specific location.

More than 100 of these investigations spawned from Storm Babet, compared to three or four yearly, covering 48 locations.

With the first few reports now starting to trickle in, covering some of the worst-hit communities such as Debenham and Framlingham, the £1.5 million investment is meant to crack on with some of the proposed short-term solutions.

But opposition group leader Cllr Andrew Stringer said many of these communities were still left ‘desperate’ for the money needed to deal with flooding-related issues, some of which had been identified as far back as seven years ago.

He added: “One of the villages I represent is in a limbo land — we’ve seen a draft report, it’s been months and months and we haven’t seen a published report.

“The communities fear we are delaying the publishing of the report to delay the works that need to be carried out by the county council.

Cllr Richard Smith. Picture: SCC
Cllr Richard Smith. Picture: SCC

“I’m not casting any blame. I think the work the team has done on this is brilliant — but we just need to know because if we haven’t identified the funds centrally then we’ll find them somewhere else because the work has to be done.”

Cllr Stringer also called for a clear timetable rather than waiting for a crisis until funding was found.

Cllr Richard Smith MVO, the county’s lead for finance, said the council was aware a lot more needed to be done ‘as and when resources allow’.

He added: “In no way are reports being delayed — there are 48 communities on the list, eight have been published so far and others will be published as resources allow over the next year. Resources had to be increased to deal with this huge workload.”

Some of the works the investment will facilitate include the implementation of community flood plans, maximising grants, removing blockages within watercourses and improving drainage infrastructure.

These will be developed and delivered through this year and into 2026.

Some of the money will also be used to develop longer-term schemes which will benefit from future external grant funding bids and partnership delivery with communities, organisations and other landowners.