Higher walls might not be the solution, but we do need to take action on floods

Outlook

Members of the emergency services carry an elderly resident aloft as they rescue her from a flooded property in Carlisle (Getty Images)

The estimated financial cost of Storm Desmond is rising, and quickly. On Monday, accountants at PwC put the insurance cost at “up to” £250m. A day later a revised estimate had it topping out at £325m out of a total economic cost of £500m. With more rain on the way, those figures will only increase.

Worse still, climate change – the contribution of which is finally being admitted – will mean more like it more often.

Questions are now rightly being asked about whether enough has been invested in flood defences, in light of a 10 per cent fall in capital expenditure in the four years since 2010.

That may now change. Floods like those left by Desmond have a habit of releasing funds. In response to the floods in the winter of 2013-14, £2.3bn was committed over six years.

The insurance industry welcomed that, but said it would be “watching closely” and with good reason. Ministers are much quicker to make promises in response to demands from angry constituents facing Christmas washouts than they are to complaints from unhappy insurers. They then have a habit of back-pedalling when the latter have finished clearing up the mess.

But investing in flood defences will only get you so far, and it isn’t always the big schemes that are the most effective. Building higher walls may not be the best answer.

For example, when I spoke to Aviva, Britain’s biggest insurer, its spokesperson made the point that people are increasingly concreting over their gardens. This is exacerbating the flood problem; vegetation helps to absorb water. If you lose it, well you don’t need me to explain what happens.

Council tax breaks for those who grow gardens? Why not? It’s the sort of thing that might actually work, an example of the “nudge” theory that David Cameron used to extol. The Prime Minister has promised a review, and it is to be hoped it produces something meaningful like that, rather than kicking the issue into the long grass.

That would be unacceptable because it won’t be long before Desmond’s pals come out to play. Flooding is going to pose a continuing economic and social cost; a failure to address it would represent gross negligence.

One of the reasons stated for eliminating Britain’s deficit is that the debt built up represents an unfair tax on future generations levied by their irresponsible parents. However, those future generations won’t thank us if deficit cutting results in their homes being underwater.

Will the regulator help savers by comparing the market?

Is the Financial Conduct Authority poised to enter the price-comparison market, with lots of goofy ads repeating its name again and again and again? CompareTheConfusedFCAmarket.com?

I’m exaggerating just a little. But with its promise to publish tables of interest rates paid by the providers of savings accounts, it is straying on to that territory.

Not without reason. In a welcome sign that it hasn’t entirely caved into the pressure to go easier on the banking industry, the Financial Conduct Authority has all but come out and said millions of savers are being ripped off.

There might have been a move away by banks from offering market-leading “teaser” rates that evaporate after six months or so, but the watchdog says that millions of people remain stuck in accounts that offer very low rates. It wants this to change.

As a result, it is planning to publish the rates being paid by savings institutions every six months, with the aim of shining a light on what they are up to. It’s not so much a price-comparison service as it is naming and shaming the rotters, and it will be accompanied by efforts to make switching easier and requirements on firms to keep their customers updated on what they’re getting for their money.

This is a worthwhile exercise on the part of the watchdog. However, while the information it publishes will be useful, and a boon for the media, it will probably only be viewed by the sort of active consumers who are already adept at shopping around, and make use of the numerous tools to get the best deals.

Slam dunk? Shareholders in Nike aren’t convinced

The sports media was drooling dollar signs at the news of a new “lifetime” deal between basketball superstar LeBron James and Nike. The sportswear giant’s shareholders, however, shrugged their shoulders. There was a little excitement after hours in the wake of the deal’s announcement, but the stock actually opened lower on Wall Street and spent most of the session treading water.

One might have thought Nike locking up its hottest property for life would have generated a little more buzz. But perhaps it will ultimately be seen as a better deal for basketball’s reigning king, who is not so much a sports star as a multimillion-dollar corporation, than for the company that has the lifetime rights to his brand.

James is, after all, facing a very real challenge to his reign from a player aligned to a company that is posing a very real challenge to Nike. Under Armour has the sport’s crown prince Stephen Curry under contract. The championships won’t be held until next June, but the bookies and most of the pundits expect them to face off. And the result will go some way towards deciding which of their sportswear backers wins off court.