19/07/2005 - When: 12.15pm
Friday 22 July 2005
What: Sod cutting ceremony with Elliot Morley
using digger to cut first turf
Where: Alkborough (directions in Notes to
Editors)
Who: Elliot Morley, Minister of State for
the Environment and Climate Change, Sir John
Harman, Environment Agency Chairman, John
Pygott, Environment Agency Project Manager
The start of work on the Alkborough Flats
Tidal Defence Scheme is being marked on Friday
22 July 2005 with Elliot Morley, (Minister
of State, Environment and Climate Change)
turning the first turf.
The Scheme is the largest flood storage and
habitat creation scheme in Europe. Over the
next two years, 440 hectares of agricultural
land alongside the Humber at Alkborough will
be returned to the estuary through the removal
of existing flood defences.
The total cost of the scheme is £10.2
million, with the funding coming from a wide
range of sources including DEFRA, Yorkshire
Forward (the Regional Development Agency),
the European Union (via the Interreg programme),
English Nature and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Once constructed, the scheme will lower the
highest tide levels throughout the upper part
of the estuary and delay the need to raise
other defences, by ten to fifteen years. By
removing the existing defences, water will
be allowed to flood the farmland creating
an inter-tidal habitat, which will be developed
as a new National Nature Reserve.
More than 300,000 people live and work in
areas around the Humber which are below the
highest tide levels, and so are at risk of
flooding. Protecting these people in the face
of climate change and associated sea level
rise is a key challenge for the Agency. The
needs of flood risk management have to be
balanced with obligations to protect this
internationally important nature conservation
area.
The Environment Agency and English Nature
began the process of buying the land at Alkborough
in 2000. At that time the site was in the
ownership of 11 different people and organisations
and has now all been bought by agreements
with the owners. Several of the farmers who
have sold the land are closely involved in
the development of the project.
Preparatory clearance work began in January
2005 and included new access tracks, site
compounds and demolition of derelict buildings
on site. The first phase of the main project
work starting now includes construction of
new channels to allow water to flow around
the site, a small new defence to protect a
sewage treatment works and riding stable adjacent
to the site, and a large freshwater reedbed
at the southern end. The second phase, starting
in 2006, will include erosion protection works
and building breaches in the current defences.
Final breaching and flooding of the site will
take place in late summer, 2006.
Sir John Harman, Environment Agency Chairman
said, "We are delighted to be working
in partnership in this way by commencing work
on the largest estuary flood storage and habitat
creation scheme in Europe. By returning agricultural
land to the Humber estuary at Alkborough,
we will be providing major benefits to the
biodiversity of this internationally important
nature conservation area as well as reducing
the risk of flooding brought about by sea
level rise."
John Pygott, Environment Agency Project Manager
said, "This pioneering scheme is a result
of the Environment Agency's Humber Estuary
Shoreline Management Plan which sets out the
Agency's long term vision for flood risk management
over the next 100 years.'
"Overall, the Agency is planning to
spend more than £60 million in the next
10 years on a combination of traditional flood
defences and managed realignment."
