Centre for Public Policy Seminars (CPPS) -
HOW DO WE PREVENT THE LIKELIHOOD OF FUTURE FLOODING?
(Held Monday 14 July 2008 at Royal Commonwealth Society.)
I attended the seminar on behalf of Swindon and North Wiltshire Branch of CPRE.
As the title suggest the theme of the one day seminar which was to look at the options for future flood management. As from me representing North Wiltshire CPRE there were forty-five other delegates at the seminar; while 15 of these were from local authorities the remainder were spread across a range of actual and potential stakeholders and academics.
The Seminar was chaired by Pam Warhurst, deputy chair, Countryside Agency. In her opening remarks Pam suggested that dealing with flooding was not solely the responsibility of Government alone but fell to a broad church of stakeholder including the public. She questioned whether all those within that broad church were engaging effectively, whether the right balance is being struck between capital engineering projects and maintenance of existing flood management/defence systems and whether planning, delivery and funding schedules were aligned. It was observed that the 2007 floods were unusual because they were surface water flooding, rather than the more common historic UK experience of fluvial flooding.
James Gray MP was the opening speaker and, as MP for North Wiltshire drew on his experience of the flooding he saw at Crudwell. He admitted that while he had been somewhat sceptical about climate change prior to the 2007 floods, the floods had convinced him. He went on to explain that the HoC Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, of which he is a member, looked at 6 areas of discussion (Government response: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmenvfru.htm published 08 July): surface water flooding; Government funding; building in flood plains; maintenance of flood defences; protecting vital infrastructure and, emergency responses. The conclusions he drew were that there was no single agency with over all responsibility for flooding; in areas such as Crudwell, the Environment Agency had not been able to provide resources because of demands from bigger areas; local authorities should keep a register of flooding risk areas; greater use of sustainable drainage systems should be encouraged – paved front garden issue is not helping; critical infrastructure protection needs to be improved. He said that the conclusion of the Select Committee was that the nation was grossly under prepared with a confusing myriad of organisations and no obvious co-ordination. Mr Gray advised that HMG was committed to addressing these issues through a bill to be brought forward next year.
Mr Roger Hargreaves as a member of the Pitt Review Team gave feedback on that review into the 2007 flooding. (http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/thepittreview.aspx). Although expressed in different way terms, his conclusions were really much the same as Mr Gray’s – there was little foreknowledge of when and where it would flood and no one authority in overall charge when it did. I found this quite surprising in view of the Office of Science and Technology April 2004 Foresight Report: Future Flooding (http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/flood/763964/?version=1&)
Mr Nick Reynard then spoke about modelling the likely nature and scale of future flooding. He highlighted the particular difficulties that the wide variability in future projections of the nature of climate change can have on modelling so, although a useful tool, it cannot provide all the answers.
Dr Andrew Collins (Northumbria University) spoke on the identification and management of flood risk and, tellingly, of the need for communities to do more together to solve some of the problems rather than simply waiting for others to do things for them. In a comment supported by many of the audience he stressed the need for greater citizen engagement and better dissemination of relevant information by those who had it.
While Mr Paul Bettison (Local Government Association) spoke of the flooding as a wake up call, other speakers spoke of the loss of and now shortage of qualified drainage experts who could lead on providing the guidance required. Mr Philip Rothwell (Environment Agency) crystallised the flood management problem when he noted that of 1M kms of watercourses in the UK, the EA has responsibility for only 35,000 kms.
Two speakers, Mr Carl Minns (Leader Hull City Council) and Martin Kane (Severn and Trent Water) gave first hand accounts of the experience they had had with dealing with the flooding in Hull and in Tewksbury. Both highlighted the initial slow reaction and spoke openly of the co-ordination issues they had faced. As other speakers had noted, Mr Kane paid tribute to the way the military had been able to charge and commandeer vital facilities in a short time, something others were unable to do. It was therefore disappointing to find that neither speaker was engaged in a countrywide process of disseminating the valuable ‘lessons learned’ from their experiences.
The final speaker, Mr Stephen Heddrell (DG, British Insurers Association) spoke of the problems that the insurance industry had faced in treating claims (including one sofa that featured on the claim form of 27 houses in the same street), the importance of ensuring that even those in social housing had house insurance (perhaps as an element of the rent) and the determination of the industry not to refuse to insure those who have suffered flood damage or whose houses are on flood plains.
In the discussions that followed each presentation there were the inevitable cries for more resources which I think most recognised were unlikely to be forthcoming on the scale required, the need for more people with the right skills to provide flooding management leadership, the need for greater citizen engagement and the need for greater levels of self help. Again tellingly, those who spoke from the experience of managing the responses to the floods spoke of the inadequacy of the Emergency Plans.