Local MEP to do all he can to secure EU flood money for South West Victims

6.33.00pm GMT Mon 10th Dec 2007

Following the announcement earlier today by Danuta Hubner, the European Commissioner for Regional Policy that the UK should receive £115m of EU funding to help clean up damage from the summer floods, local Lib Dem MEP for the South West and Gibraltar Graham Watson has offered his full support to help get the European Parliament to confirm the Commission's proposal to bring EU aide to parts of his constituency.

Commenting from Strasbourg today Graham Watson said:

"I wrote to Gordon Brown this summer, urging the government to lodge an application for EU Solidarity Funding and I am pleased that Ministers have taken this course of action which could provide financial assistance for all affected areas in the UK: Gloucester, the Midlands and Yorkshire. My constituents in the affected areas, like me, will welcome today's announcement. I did not want to see the huge costs of the clean-up falling on already overstretched local authority budgets, leading to increases in Council Tax."

Around 48,000 homes and 7,000 businesses were affected in the South West, the Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside in June and July.

The European Union Solidarity Fund, set up after the catastrophic flooding which hit Central Europe in summer 2002, is designed to provide fast, effective and flexible emergency financial aid to areas struck by natural disasters. Member States must submit an application for funding no later than 10 weeks after the first damage.