Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron urges the Government to give funding and support to flood-hit South Lakeland

THE water may largely have gone and the weather taken a turn for the better, but as I visit places across South Lakeland it is clear that the effects of the flooding are very much still being felt, not least for those who have been forced to leave their homes.

As media focus shifts to ‘new’ news and government interest fades, our challenge is to hold the authorities’ feet to the fire to ensure thatSouth Lakeland gets the support it needs to recover and to help make our communities more resilient to flooding.

In the short-term, there is an urgent need to restore damaged infrastructure, while in the longer term we must look at comprehensive, whole-systems approaches to flood prevention. For far too long, the government has sought to make short-term savings at the expense of long-term investment which would have helped to provide protection from the floods.

The single biggest infrastructure challenge we face is the continued closure of the A591. Although the government has finally committed to undertake in full the required repairs, this crucial route connecting the north and south of the Lake District is due to remain closed until the end of May. Local business people expect thatthis could cost the local economy up to £100million. If this happens, businesses that rely on the tourist trade will go under, and with them the jobs they supported. I am urgently pushing for a solution that will provide relief for local businesses.

Unfortunately, the A591 is far from the only local infrastructure destroyed by the floods – across South Lakeland, bridges and roads remain closed. In Kendal, the recent closure of Victoria Bridge is having a big impact on local businesses. Although the government has committed to providing £40 million to restore Cumbrian infrastructure, the total cost is likely to be around 12 times this amount, and I am pushing the government to provide this funding too.

In the longer-term, however, a holistic approach must be taken to minimise the threat of future flooding. This would cover measures such as flood defences, but also include plans for dredging, watercourse maintenance, and upland land management.

The government has been short-sighted in cutting funding for flood defences, meaning schemes such as one for the River Kent, first due to be started in 2011, were never implemented. This project, and others like it, would have reduced the impact of flooding and thereby not only saved money but reduced human misery; these schemes must go ahead.

Many have also rightly pointed out the need for land management schemes designed to retain water in upland areas so as to minimise flooding downstream. It is important that these measures and their potential benefits are fully explored as part of a whole-systems approach to flood prevention. Equally, however, it must be recognised thatthe livelihoods of many local farmers are dependent on their use of these upland areas, and any solutions must therefore be the result of dialogue with them.

I will also continue to lobby the government to apply for money from the EU Solidarity Fund. This is designed specifically to help member states hit by natural disasters, and the UK would be eligible for millions of pounds of much-needed money. Unfortunately, the government appears more concerned with appeasing its own backbenchers’ Euroscepticism than with securing funding to help repair flood damage, and has still not applied.

My task for the weeks and months ahead is therefore clear – to put continual pressure on the government to ensure that South Lakeland receives the funding and support it needs both to repair the damage that has happened and to prevent it happening again.