A FLOODS chief says Cumbria could need £150m to better protect itself from future flooding – more than double the amount coming the county’s way.

Andy Brown, the Environment Agency’s flood risk manager for Cumbria, is working towards creating a “business case” to help pull in extra government funding.

“Currently the total is about £72m for improvements to flood defences in Cumbria over the next five years. Of that £58m is new money [since the floods], it’s very necessary investment,” Mr Brown said.

“But I’m a little greedy, that isn’t enough. We need more than that so what we are continuing doing is to try and build a business case to secure more money for Cumbria because we know what we have got is not enough.

“A ball park figure? You could give me around £150m and I could use that.

“There’s substantial investment needed and it’s my job to build a business case to secure more money. That’s one of the ongoing biggest aspects for us. Some of that would be related to infrastructure like bridges which need improvements.”

In neighbouring Lancashire the agency has secured £121m of government funding to spend, which it says will help protect about 33,000 homes.

In the past year the EA has worked on 159 repair projects across the two counties.

Kathryn Tanner, EA’s flood recovery manager, says a lot of work has been done with communities but the size of the patch they’ve had to work across has been one of the biggest difficulties.

She said: "There’s a perception that nothing is happening, but things are happening.

On what happened last year, Mr Brown added: “From a community perspective, the defences failed. From a technical perspective they were overwhelmed.

“In quite a lot of locations there were visual repairs there were needed but other jobs were first aid jobs. So it has created the perception that we weren’t doing anything but in most these locations we will have done something.”

Between December 5 and January 6 the EA issued 92 severe flood warnings.

Going forward Mr Brown says the EA has been at the core of a review into how a range of authorities respond to emergencies.

For the agency, that includes increasing the take-up on their early warning system. Over the last 12 months an extra 2,000 properties are now are signed up to receive flood warnings.

Since Storm Desmond the EA has worked with 68 flood action groups across Cumbria, 15 of those new ones were set up in the aftermath of the floods.