THE Government has been accused of a lack of action on carrying out flood defence work in Pickering and Sinnington by Anne McIntosh, the shadow Environment Minister and MP for the Vale of York.

She said this week: “Over the last two years since the most recent floods, we have seen a complete lack of action and no sense of urgency from the Government.”

Miss McIntosh, who is propsective Parliamentary Conservative candidate for the new Thirsk and Malton division, added: “I have serious reservations over this country’s prepardeness for protection from a future flood at such places as Pickering and Sinnington.

“Although there have been some improvements, not enough has been done.”

She said she welcomed the recently published Draft Floods and Water Bill, which aims to bring in the necessary legislation to implement recommendations made by Sir Michael Pitt in his report for the Government following the 2007 floods, but added: “We are fast approaching the second anniversary of the 2007 floods and there are still major concerns.

“The Yorkshire and Humber region is one of the most at-risk areas of flooding in the UK, and during the last two years I have visited many of those areas in the North East that were severely affected by the 2007 floods and subsequent floods, such as those in Sinnington, Filey and Pickering.

“I have continued to visit these areas to see the progress on their recovery from the floods and the importance of the flood defences required to protect the homes and properties form future floods.”

“It is true that some of these areas have, in the recent months, had confirmation from the Environment Agency on plans to reduce their flood risk, with some of the work even being started in Pickering,, Sinnington and Morpeth.

“However there are still many issues that need to be addressed to ensure that a flood on the same scale as we saw on 2007 would not cause the same destruction and devastation.”

Apart from the £34.5 million promised by the Government to implement the Pitt Review and the £20 million on flood defences brought forward from the 2009/10 budgets, to produce earlier protection for 27,000 homes, there is no new money to implement the changes called for in the Bill.

Instead, money must be found from existing budgets from both the Environment Agency (EA) and local authorities, said Miss McIntosh.

DEFRA has allocated an additional £15m to local authorities, an additional £5m to the Environment Agency and Met Office jointly and an additional £8.5m to the Environment Agency from the original fund of £34.5m to implement the Pitt recommendations.

That leaves, £12m for local authorities, £2.7m for the EA and Met Office jointly, and £6.6m for the EA to find from their budgets.