Prime Minister pledges £40m to bolster flood defences

Flood defences are to be fixed and bolstered under a new £40 million package announced by the Prime Minister.

Thousands of homes and businesses across northern England were hit by severe weather over the Christmas period.

David Cameron said the fund will help ensure future defences are "more resilient" to adverse weather conditions:

Charities raising cash for communities left devastated by the deluge will have their efforts matched by the Government up to a total of £2 million.

Around £10 million of the funding package will be used to improve defences in York after they failed to cope during the storm.

The rest of the cash will be spent on repairing defences on the Calder, Aire, Ouse and Derwent rivers in Yorkshire as well as the Wharfe, which runs through Tadcaster where the storm left the town split intwo when an ancient bridge collapsed.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, whose Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency has been badly hit by flooding, said: "Time and time again, David Cameron offers warm words and a little bit of funding for a short-term fix.

"This money wouldn't be needed now if he had followed through with so many previous commitments to truly protect homes threatened with flooding."

He also questioned how much of the £40 million was new money and said it represented a "small down-payment" compared to the £500 million bill faced in Cumbria alone.

Shadow cabinet minister Hilary Benn, whose Leeds Central seat was also hit by flooding, said: "This is the very least the Government can do given the extent of the damage from flooding, but what we really want to hear from the Prime Minister is a cast iron commitment to fund phases two and three of the Leeds flood defence scheme.

"As we now know to our cost, ministers made a terrible mistake when they refused to fund the full scheme in 2011 and they now need to put that right."