Flood protection: choose between town or country, warns Environment Agency

Lord Smith says agency right to prioritise front rooms over farmland from flood damage after agency budget cuts • Have you been affected by the floods? Share your images and stories via Guardian Witness Britain cannot offer flood protection to both town and countryside from the kind of extraordinary weather it has endured in the past two months and so would have to choose between the two, the head of the Environment Agency has warned. Lord Smith said some properties and land in low-lying rural areas would always be vulnerable to flooding, even if all the measures for which flood victims have been campaigning were implemented, including dredging rivers in the stricken Somerset Levels. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Smith defended the agency s proud record in defending more than 1m homes from flooding this winter. And he suggested it was right to prioritise front rooms over farmland after budget cuts to the agency. Lord Smith, a former Labour cabinet minister, wrote: Yes, agricultura
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