MANY of Britain’s most flood-prone rural areas are to be abandoned to a future without flood defences.

When ministers announce a review of defences across England and Wales this month, they plan to raise annual spending from £411m last year to £564m by 2005, but many homeowners and businesses will be left to fend for themselves.

Flooding has inundated hundreds of homes around Britain in the past week, mainly in rural areas, and government forecasters predict such floods will grow in frequency because of climate change.

This weekend, however, it emerged that most of the new money will be spent in developed and urban areas, while attempts to stem flood waters in many rural settlements will be abandoned.

Ministers argue that places such as Yalding in Kent, which was inundated last week, are too expensive to defend fully and should be left to their fate.

Elliot Morley, the minister responsible for flood defences, said: “There are some scattered and isolated communities where the cost of defending them is so high that it is not feasible. You cannot justify spending that much of taxpayers’ money.”

Such views will anger many rural constituencies which face plummeting property values and more frequent inundation.

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman and MP for flood-prone Lewes in East Sussex, said even the apparent spending increase was a sham. “When Labour came to power it cut spending on flood defence. Now it is putting the money back but it has left us years behind on many projects.”

The misery of homeowners in flood-prone areas will be compounded by insurers. An agreement to continue cover for two years after the disastrous 2000 floods, in which 10,000 homes were inundated, expired last week and insurers are re-examining premiums and policies.

Additionally, the Environment Agency is about to supply insurers with detailed digital maps pinpointing every property at risk. Currently the insurers work mainly on postcodes.

Morley said there would be no government help or compensation for householders hit by flooding. “We are leaving it to the operation of the free market,” he said.

Yesterday Michael Coogan, director of the Council of Mortgage Lenders, said homes at serious risk of repeated flooding should be demolished and residents rehoused as the owners will find it increasingly hard to get mortgages or insurance.

However, Morley’s ministry will be offering advice on how householders can defend themselves at their own expense.

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