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UK flood chief faces heat over holiday trip
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AS much of northern Britain braced itself for further flooding yesterday, the chief of England’s Environment Agency has come under fire after it emerges he had spent the last two weeks in Barbados.
Philip Dilley, 60, was set to meet with flood victims yesterday shortly after returning to Britain, saying that he had arrived “at the appropriate time.”
The agency and the government have been criticized after thousands were forced to leave their homes during an unusually wet December, with officials blamed for failing to build adequate flood defences.
The agency has been also accused of misleading the public after releasing a statement saying that Dilley, a former business adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, was “at home with his family” during floods that hit a day after Christmas.
A tanned Dilley spoke to reporters as he arrived at his London flat yesterday, saying he would be “very happy to speak” with those affected. The former engineer defended the agency’s response, saying “we’ve been very effective and efficient in what we've been doing.”
“Everybody can’t be everywhere at the same time,” he said of his whereabouts during the most recent wave of flooding, which struck northern England over the Christmas holidays. “I am lucky enough to have two homes so I travel between the two,” he added.
Dilley earns a reported 100,000 pounds (US$148,000) a year in his role of agency chairman, a part-time position that requires him to work two to three days a week. Britain’s newspapers carried photographs of what is believed to be his gated mansion in the Caribbean, which boasts a swimming pool and palm tree-filled grounds.
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