The Government have refused a £20m funding application made by Derbyshire County Council to repair damage caused to roads, drains and bridges in the floods last autumn.

The flooding last year caused serious damage to over 125 miles of the County’s roads, 25 bridges and blocked thousands of gulleys and drains.  The County Council were asked to provide a financial estimate of the flood damages but the Government are no longer going to provide the funding for the repairs. Toby Perkins, MP for Chesterfield, has been approached by the Council to ask for his support in pressing the Government to provide the funding needed.

Toby said, “Boris Johnson made a big show of coming to Matlock just after the flooding during the election campaign and he pledged that Derbyshire residents would receive his full support. Now he needs to honour the commitments he has made to Derbyshire.”

Toby has written to the Prime Minister calling on the Government to provide the £20 million needed for the repairs across Derbyshire.

Toby added, “We are already seeing statutory services pushed to the brink in Derbyshire, with cuts to care for older people, children with special educational needs not getting the support they need and social services struggling. The County Council simply do not have the resources to complete these repairs without impacting other services further, and so the Government must provide the funding.”