Thirsk & Malton MP, Kevin Hollinrake, has joined forces with the River Derwent Catchment Partnership to press for more funding for Slowing the Flow so that flood prevention work can be extended across the Derwent Catchment. He has written and met with Floods Minister, Therese Coffey MP, to bid for a share in the £15 million which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has committed to build on the initial successes of natural flood risk management, piloted at Pickering. The Secretary of State for DEFRA, Andrea Leadsom MP, detailed the new investment in her response to Mr Hollinrake’s question about flood risk management in Pickering in the Commons earlier this year.
Mr Hollinrake fully supports the work of the partnership who are developing the use of natural processes to reduce flood risk. More funding would allow the current project to be expanded, helping to protect properties further downstream towards Malton and build on the experience and knowledge gained by the teams responsible for the Pickering project.
Mr Hollinrake met again with Jeremy Walker, Chair of the Partnership, this week in Pickering to discuss plans for future work.
“The Slowing the Flow project has been successful thus far but we have more to do, for example at Sinnington. Other communities within the catchment such as Helmsley and Thornton le Dale could also benefit from similar approaches. The Derwent catchment covers some 2000 square kilometres and the Partnership aims to establish whether natural flood defence measures can be rolled out to improve the capacity of whole river systems to reduce flood risk. This seems to me to be work of national significance. For these reasons I very much hope that, given the successful track record at Pickering, serious consideration will be given to including the Derwent within the £15m Government investment.”