Connor Creaghan

Lincolnshire will get £93 million in flood defence funding to help protect over 17,000 homes.

The new funding was announced in the Budget on March 11 and will be for properties in Skegness, Tattershall and Boston.

As the money has just released, there are no specific plans just yet on how it will be spent to protect homes.

However, Skegness will get the biggest share with £75 million. Tattershall will get £12 million and Boston will get £6 million.

The money will be welcome news in Wainfleet, where residents recently said they were “terrified by rain” and called for action.

Almost 600 properties were evacuated when the River Steeping in the town burst its banks on June 12, 2019, leaving around 1,000 people out of their homes.

Senior conservative councillor at Lincolnshire County Council, Colin Davie, told Lincolnshire Reporter he was analysing the detail.

He said: “I strongly welcome the chancellor’s commitment to the substantial increase in flood defence funding to the UK which benefits Lincolnshire too.

“We are currently analysing the detail of the announcements in the budget and will look to comment further as the details become available to us.”

Fears about the outbreak of coronavirus have forced organisers to cancel or postpone Lincoln events to prevent its spread.

But organisers have blamed COVID-19 for needing to postpone at least five events in the city so far, with some being pushed back to October.

The City of Lincoln Council postponed its climate crisis meeting on March 11 and 13, which sought to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Residents who were taking part in the Christmas Market meeting on March 12 have also been told that it will be postponed.

The Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership also postponed its first-ever Skills Conference next week.

It was due to take place on March 19, but with 400 people expected to attend, it will now be rescheduled for October 13.

The Business Lincolnshire Growth Hub has also postponed all of its events in March due to coronavirus and apologised for any inconvenience caused.

Streets Chartered Accountants will be scrapping their post-budget presentation in Lincoln and will be replacing it with a video.

So far, the Lincolnshire Show is still going ahead in June and Lincoln City has no plans to postpone or play games behind closed doors.

Empty shelves were seen in the toilet roll/cleaning products section at the Lincolnshire Co-op store on Boultham Park Road. Photo: Matt Smith

In Lincoln, photos have emerged of empty shelves at Waitrose, ASDA, and Morrisons. Supermarkets have begun to limit purchases in response.

So far, two cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Greater Lincolnshire: one in Lincolnshire last Friday, and a second in North Lincolnshire on Tuesday.

At least one Lincoln pupil was in coronavirus self-quarantine for 14 days after returning to the country from a personal trip abroad.

A Lincoln village school that arrived in Italy just before coronavirus put the country into lockdown was forced to abandon the ski trip.

Do you know of any other events that have been postponed or cancelled due to coronavirus fears? Get in touch with the team on [email protected].