Insurers call for end to floodplain building
Britain's insurance industry has warned that new housing developments must be built away from flood-risk areas if flood insurance is to remain widely available and competitively priced.The warning from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) comes after housing minister Yvette Cooper admitted that new developments would continue to be built in some areas prone to flooding, providing adequate protection was in place to protect them from potential damage.However the ABI's director of general insurance and health, Nick Starling, said the devastation caused by the recent bad weather in Britain showed the importance of planning and called for a "fresh approach" to house building to take account of the increasing risk of flooding.Commenting on the publication of the government's new housing plans, he stressed: "New homes should not be built in high-risk areas of the floodplain."They must be planned and designed with flooding in mind, with greater use of flood-resilient building materials," Mr Starling added.A new green paper published by the government yesterday announced £8 billion of investment to boost the supply of affordable housing in order to meet a target of building three million more homes by 2020.Speaking on the Today programme ahead of the release of the plans the housing minister promised a "real clampdown" on developments in areas at risk of flooding.Ms Cooper explained that the Environment Agency would be responsible for advising developers which areas were susceptible, but admitted that the government was not proposing that there should be no building on floodplains.She added that "misinformation" about the risk of flooding was being used to "whip up hostility" to plans to tackle the shortage of affordable housing.But shadow housing minister Grant Shapps warned that building new developments in flood-risk areas could make homes uninsurable and cause them to become "the sink estates of tomorrow".
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