Latest news with #flooddefense
BBC News
19 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Bespoke help to protect buildings in Tenbury Wells from flooding
Home and business owners in a town hit by widespread flooding will get bespoke help towards protecting their buildings.A wall collapsed in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, after the Kyre Brook rose during Storm Bert in November, leaving the town centre Environment Agency initially allocated more than £17m to a new defence scheme including walls, embankments and flood gates. But plans were put on hold after a funding gap of between £8-13m was of that money will now be spent on helping individual properties, with the agency paying for an initial survey and then looking at funding the installation of flood defence measures in buildings. Charlie Chandler, the agency's area flood risk manager, said measures could include flood gates, air brick covers and bungs for first step for all homes and businesses was a property survey and some neighbouring properties, such as semi-detached and terraced houses, might need to be looked at confirmed funding was coming from the original £17m grant that was discussed. "I think it's a better idea... it would definitely be more of a help to us," said Tenbury resident Maggie Morris, who attended the first drop-in session at the town's Regal Theatre on she and her husband John own and rent out a bungalow within a few metres of the Kyre Brook, which they said had flooded twice in recent it already has a flood defence door, the couple said they were keen to learn what measures could protect the property."Do I think that it's going to help? I do feel it's a bit like a sticking plaster," said business owner Rachel Rogers. She said her Market Street bathroom company, Nature's Design Studio, had been devastated by November's floodwater."The flooding has got worse... the height of the water now is a lot higher than it used to be," she said."I'm not moaning - they will give flood defences... but they really should be looking at the long term about how they could make the situation better." In addition to funding improvements for individual properties, Mr Chandler said work was still planned for the Kyre Brook including planting trees, ponds and other environmental measures that would allow the area to hold more terms of the original flood defence scheme that was proposed, he said: "We've seen significant floods over the last five years so we believe that the right investment opportunity is to progress what we can now, at this point in time, to help reduce flood risk and make the community as resilient as possible." Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Reuters
6 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Explainer: Why a Peruvian farmer's court loss may be a win for climate justice
May 28 (Reuters) - A decade-long court battle between a Peruvian farmer and German energy giant RWE ( opens new tab over the company's global emissions and its impact on his hometown finally came to an end on Wednesday. The court threw out the case without the possibility of appeal. Despite that, the farmer, his lawyers and environmentalists are hailing the ruling as an unprecedented victory for climate cases that could spur similar lawsuits. The highland Peruvian city of Huaraz is at risk from a glacial lake outburst flood as glacial melt has caused the volume of Lake Palcacocha to increase by at least 34 times since 1970, requiring investment in dams and drainage structures. Peruvian farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya sued German energy giant RWE, claiming it should pay for 0.5% of the flood defenses since the company emitted 0.5% of global emissions since the industrial revolution despite not having a physical presence in Peru. The amount would have come out to about $17,500. The court decision was based on calculating the risk Lliuya's home faced from flooding. An expert opinion found that the 30-year damage risk to the plaintiff's house was 1%. The court deemed this was not enough to take the case further. While Lliuya's house's risk didn't pass the threshold, the court said that companies could be held liable for the impacts of their emissions. "They really established a legal duty, a legal principle of corporate climate liability, which no court has ever done anywhere else in the world in a verdict like this," Noah Walker-Crawford, a researcher at London School of Economics, Grantham Research Institute, said in a press conference after the verdict. "So this is a really, really historic decision." The court ruling stated that civil courts can rule on climate cases and that the German Civil Code overseeing property rights applies across borders and therefore, litigants around the world can file transnational cases against German companies. The court noted that RWE's permits do not exempt it from liability when infringing on the rights of others and the size of its global emissions meant it had a special responsibility for consequences due to climate change. It noted that being one of many emitters does not shield a company from liability. The court said that the link between emissions and risks dates back to 1958, when U.S. scientist Charles Keeling published a graph of the annual variation and accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. It added that the 1965 Presidential SAC report that found burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric CO2 also gave companies enough information to foresee harmful consequences of emissions and bear legal responsibility for them. It added that there is a linear causation between emissions and climate change and the complexity of climate change science does not prevent liability. In a statement to Reuters, a spokesperson for RWE said the ruling did not set a precedent as it is understood in the UK legal system, and it added three other regional courts have taken a different legal view. Since the case was thrown out, the court did not rule on whether and to what extent RWE could be held responsible, the statement said, adding that the company has operated in accordance with applicable laws and climate policy should be resolved at the political level.
BBC News
27-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Will anyone miss the flood committee?
On its first day in charge of Lincolnshire County Council Reform UK abolished one of the authority's most important and powerful committees. The Flood and Water Management Scrutiny Committee oversaw nearly every aspect of flood defence in a county that has been devastated by flooding in recent years. Despite cross-party pleas to save it, Reform UK's new council leader Sean Matthews said he wanted to save money and "streamline" the authority. But will scrapping the committee make any difference to the experiences of those who live with the threat of flooding? How much of a problem is flooding in Lincolnshire? Forget politics for a second. Let's start with it comes to flooding, Lincolnshire is one of the most vulnerable places in Britain; this low-lying region is criss-crossed by a complexity of rivers and county also has more than 50 miles (80km) of coastline and nearly all of this needs defending from the North drop of rainfall that falls on Lincolnshire must be managed. This means either pumping it out to sea via the river and drainage network or diverting water and storing the flood risks are far from being theoretical. In recent years Lincolnshire has been battered by a succession of powerful weather systems. Most notably Storm Babet and Storm Henk between October 2023 and February 2024, when 900 homes were flooded and 13 river defences were seriously damaged. According to the Met Office, this part of the country recorded its wettest ever winter on record, experiencing a month's rain in just a 24 hour period. What did the committee do? No one ever lost sleep over the scrapping of council committee, right?Well, drive through this watery landscape on a rainy November morning and you might see their point. Conservative councillor Ian Carrington, who sat on the Committee said "it was very unfortunate" that it had been scrapped."The committee did not just listen and scrutinise, it took steps to improve the protection that the people of Lincolnshire enjoy from the scourge of flooding", he Lincolnshire from flooding involves a number of public bodies as well as specialist officers from the include The Environment Agency, which plays a leading role in protecting people and are also at least 15 Internal Drainage Boards or IDBs. These IDBs have specialist local knowledge and operate hundreds of pumping stations, sluices and flood are lots of moving parts in a flood defence Flood and Water Management Scrutiny Committee was there to try to make them all work together. It made recommendations, including calls for more government money and it would hold to account the myriad private and public bodies. Why was it axed? The Flood and Water Scrutiny Committee met four times a year. It involved at least 18 councillors and dozens of other were drawn from the council itself, from the IDBs, The Environment Agency and private companies such as Anglian councillor Ian Carrington said the recent experiences of big storms in Lincolnshire demonstrated the need for the committee: "When you have been through the appalling experiences that many of our local residents have been through, any dilution of our ability to improve the situation has to be deeply worrying." he Reform UK scrapped the committee on its first day in charge of Lincolnshire County Council. The new administration said the change would save money and simplify the UK Council leader Sean Matthews, said that flooding will now sit within the Environment Committee, which already deals with issues such as waste and pollutionMr Matthews said: "I want there to be more meetings about flooding in the county and by moving it under the umbrella of Environment we get to talk about it more." he said."We will work longer and harder on flooding than ever before." he added. Labour group leader Councillor Karen Lee described the change as "Reckless, foolhardy and wrong". What will the impact be? As the climate changes, as rain events become more frequent and more severe, it is clear that properties in Lincolnshire are under an increasing immediate responses to flooding incidents are unlikely to change in the short term. There are well-rehearsed protocols between the council, the fire service and the professionals who work hard to mitigate the worst of what nature throws at the longer-term strategies of defence, response and recovery will also need to function effectively; what we learn from flood events, whom we hold to account and where we spend the money to improve protection for this against a backdrop of tightening budgets. Even the government's Environment Secretary Emma Hardy has described the state of the UK's flood defences as being in the 'worst state on record' Despite resounding criticism from its political rivals Reform UK is arguing that its "simplified" approach will better serve the thousands of vulnerable residents, some of whom look nervously to the skies every time the clouds Sean Matthews denied he was watering-down the council's role: "Absolutely not. We were elected on a mandate of reducing waste and simplifying the council, and this [decision] will do that." 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