Flooded Cumbrian farmers get £500k aid package

Announcing the new fund today (Wednesday, December 16) Hilary Benn, Environment Secretary, said farmers would be able to apply for grants of up to £6,800 to remove gravel and other debris from their land. He added his department was urgently exploring scope for further support.  

The floods, which ravaged Cumbria in November, cost millions of pounds worth of damage and left many farmers unable to use their land after it was left swamped in stones and debris.

Mr Benn said the extreme weather had caused ‘a lot of distress’ to farmers.

“Many farmers have been severely affected, with large quantities of stones and other debris washed onto their fields,” he said.

Robert Jackson, from Croft House Farm in Papcastle, Cumbria, said the floodwater destroyed 6 acres of barley, washed away his fences and left 70 of his 500 ewes marooned on a disused railway embankment.

He was left with a thousand tonnes of gravel, a shipping container, a caravan and several garden sheds on his land.   

In the short term, Mr Benn said the new funding should help to clear the land. “It will be a big help to farmers to make their land usable again and to allow livestock back to graze.

“We will continue to work with local farmers to find the best way to dispose of, or reuse, the gravel and debris left behind,” he said.

The funding is being made available through Defra’s Rural Development Programme for England and will be delivered by Local Action Groups (LAGs) and the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA).

David Hunter, head of rural development at the NWDA, said farmers’ immediate need was to remove debris from their land.

“This is costly and farmers need to get their land working again. I am pleased that following discussions we can make these funds available from today,” he said.

The funding is in addition to £2 million already pledged by Government to communities in Cumbria that have been affected by flooding.

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