SHALDON will not be put at risk in flood defence cutbacks announced by the Environment Agency. The agency, responsible for flood defences, is among those being hit by funding cuts by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It will lose out on £15 million for flood defences, £8.5 million on environmental protection and £300,000 from business recycling schemes. But the cuts exclude Shaldon because it is a ring fenced, capital funded scheme. It was announced in April that Shaldon would be one of four schemes in the South West to benefit from £2.5 million of government money. Environment Agency spokesman Paul Gainey confirmed that the flood defence scheme at Shaldon would not be affected. 'These cuts will exclude any Flood Risk Management capital schemes like the flood defence scheme at Shaldon,' he said. But there are fears that Teignmouth's bid for a new flood defence scheme at the Back Beach could be in jeopardy. The town council's flood defence working party recently undertook weeks of consultation and came up with a unanimous decision to approach the Environment Agency for a new scheme. It comes two years after a scheme was thrown out in the face of public opposition. Now Teignmouth is back in the melting pot of areas wanting flood defences. It is feared that they will be put on hold while cutback targets are met. Working party chairman Cllr Susan Dawe said: 'We do have strong reasons for a flood defence scheme, one of them being that we cannot look to regenerate some areas of the town until it is in place. 'The main anxiety is that if cuts are in the pipeline now, it is likely that they will continue,' she said. The town council had asked for negotiations with the Environment Agency on any scheme design, but Cllr Dawe fears that that may deter them. 'It could be that some sectors of the community want a scheme whatever the cost, but we do need to make sure it is done sensitively, particularly after the last time, but we have to await the outcome of discussions on that,' she said. The agency has to save £15 million on flood defence for this financial year and the next to meet a shortfall in Defra's budget. Defra has experienced financial pressures because of the new subsidy scheme for farmers and dealing with the threat of avian flu. Mr Gainey said: 'Following discussion with Defra about a series of financial pressures being faced by the Defra family – which includes the Environment Agency – savings are being sought for this financial year and the next to meet a shortfall in the Defra budget. 'We have moved immediately to review options for managing the budget reduction in the least damaging way possible. It is likely that we will need to agree with Defra some reductions in our delivery targets in line with the budget reduction. 'Ideally we would have wanted these reductions to have arisen from our ongoing programme of identifying efficiencies and improving productivity, but the scale of the reductions are over and above our planned efficiency programme. The fact that the savings must be achieved in just over half the financial year will mean that some of the reductions will involve delaying things we would really have preferred not to delay,' he said.
