Campaigners set to lobby Woolas over flooding

Flood campaigners are set to lobby environment minister Phil Woolas against proposals to end flood bank maintenance in Suffolk.

Members of the Blyth Strategy Group are to travel to Westminster with local councillors to meet with Mr Woolas in order to gain reassurance that the Blyth estuary will be protected against flooding.

EDP24.co.uk reports that this is a response to Mr Woolas’s recent visit to Norfolk, which saw the minister claim that it would be protected despite a Natural England suggestion that a portion of the region should be flooded.

In addition, the Blyth Strategy Group will fight to protect its earthwall flood defences, which the Environment Agency claim will cost millions of pounds to maintain.

"This area is very special and of as much value as the Broads. Places like Walberswick and Southwold are real Suffolk gems and we cannot afford to lose them," said Guy McGregor, Suffolk county councillor and chair of the campaigning group.

According to a report by thinktank the Institute of Public Policy Research, the six counties of the east of England receive 18 per cent less funding than the national average.