Budget 2015 - PwC comments on flood defence announcement

Jon Williams, PwC sustainability and climate change partner, said:

"The decision to bring forward £140m of the £2.3bn six-year flood defence programme is to be welcomed, both for the 31,000 additional homes that will get protection earlier than planned and for the insurance industry. With one in six homes in the UK at risk of flooding, clearly more can always be done to accelerate investment, and today's announcement still only amounts to 10% of the homes at risk gaining protection. Balancing the Government's overall budget and ongoing austerity measures need to be weighed against the economic losses from flooding, which are only likely to rise as our climate changes."