Local MP, Dame Caroline Spelman MP, welcomed news that the West Midlands regional branch of the Environment Agency has taken new action to protect a greater number of homes in the Blythe Valley area near Hampton in Arden.
Speaking to the Secretary of State for the Environment in the House of Commons, Dame Caroline thanked the Environment Agency for adopting new measures to protect 34 more homes in Blythe Valley, but urged the Secretary of State to ensure that further progress would continue to be made to protect homes in the Meriden constituency, and across the UK.
Dame Caroline said: “Through the Secretary of State, may I thank the Environment Agency in the West Midlands? Its regional director told me last week that thirty four more homes will be protected in the Blythe valley in my constituency. But, will she confirm that the agency is constantly updating its modelling in response to rainfall records constantly being broken”?
In her response, the Environment Secretary replied: “My right hon. Friend knows a great deal about this subject, and she will be aware that the resilience review, which we undertook across Government, contained an enormous amount of remodelling of the likely impacts of increasingly extreme weather events. Of course, the Environment Agency is always looking not just at what schemes can protect people better, but at where the best types of flood protection can be developed, whether through concrete barriers or natural flood protection”.