Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60 - 79)
28 APRIL 1998
DR GEOFF
MANCE, MR
BRYAN UTTERIDGE
and MRS KATHARINE
BRYAN
60. I do not think that is quite the answer to the question
I asked.
(Mr Utteridge) Sorry.
61. You might have Farmer Jones who is more than willing
to let the retreat take place over his land but then you have
got Farmer Brown next to him who says "No". Now you
cannot only retreat over part of the land, can you, you have to
have a planned retreat on the line of the new coastline? Are there
powers to acquire that land at a price so that you may organise
that retreat?
(Dr Mance) We have Compulsory Purchase Order powers,
yes, but we have to operate to the PAGN—Project Appraisal
Guidance Notes. As we have flagged elsewhere in the evidence there
are difficulties and those are not currently taken account of,
environmental cost and benefits, and therefore we can only actually
use those CPO powers for retreat if we can prove the overall scheme
is cost beneficial. That is where we get into this difficulty
about how do you value having saltmarsh in front of the defence,
scheme by scheme, location by location. That is where it gets
quite difficult at present because there is a degree, as we flagged,
of a lack of flexibility in interpretation of those Project Appraisal
Guidance Notes.
Mr Hurst: I have other questions, Peter, but I think it would
be unfair of me to continue.
Chairman: This is an important issue. I want to come in with
one supplementary myself so do continue, if you wish.
Mr Hurst
62. Do I gain the impression that those powers or the strategy
of the retreated coastline is rarely used so far?
(Dr Mance) It has proved difficult to progress. I
did flag earlier that it is proving an interesting point of discussion
in committee because it is a move away from the traditional, you
rebuild where you were, into much more where is actually the sensible
long term sustainable line of defence, taking account of the natural
shoreline processes. That is actually quite a cultural shift to
achieve in the lay members of our committee structure as well.
Having said that, we then have the difficulty of doing the cost
benefit in a way that complies with the Project Appraisal Guidance
Notes and enables us to cost justify so doing as well. At the
moment we are teasing out the issues and we have a number of sites
we are examining in some detail to try and draw out the issues,
expose them, and try and find a way forward.
63. You are operating, are you not, in a friendlier climate
and discussions about CAP and areas of agriculture are beginning
to move towards that farmers perhaps should be paid for custodianship,
perhaps should be paid rather more for the preservation of the
land and indeed the retreat of the land as against the sea could
well fit in with schemes of that kind? You are moving into an
intellectual climate which is much more friendly.
(Dr Mance) Agreed, but we still have to achieve a
change in the interpretation and the nature of the Guidance Rules
we have to operate to. The climate may be becoming more favourable
but by working up examples and teasing up the problems hopefully
we are encouraging that transition.
Chairman
64. I think I am going to push you on this, Mr Hurst has
already asked you this. Your evidence was a little coy on this
point I thought but I think I understood it. At paragraph 5.2.12
you discuss this issue and you say: "... As a result, there
is concern that environmental and social issues are not adequately
considered within current appraisals". That means you are
concerned environmental and social issues are not adequately considered.
(Dr Mance) Yes.
65. Thank you for that. Can I just ask one point on this
whole area. In your oral evidence you have talked about soft engineering
and its importance. In your written evidence to us you did not
put a great deal of emphasis on the soft engineering except for
the environmental aspects of it. I wonder if I could just push
you to say a little bit more to us about the role of soft engineering
as the flood defence strategy and how strongly you are implementing
such strategies now yourselves?
(Mr Utteridge) Thank you, Chairman. I think a good
example is what we call the Lincs Shore Project which was one
of the first major beach nourishment programmes on the English
coast. It was a multi million pound scheme. What it involves is
collecting aggregate, and in this case it is sand, off the sea
bed some distance off the coast so that it does not cause problems
near to shore and exacerbate wave action and the sand is brought
to shore by suction dredger and then deposited over the shore
and the beach is built up. That is a good example of beach nourishment.
There are several other projects that are currently being looked
at on the south coast where it would be shingle nourishment but
it is the same sort of principle. Instead of building heavy concrete
structures, hard structures that cause wave refraction and wave
reflection and tend to erode the beach, we are actually using
the materials that we place on the beach to absorb wave energy.
That is a clear example on the coast. I think there is a bigger
one in the river system, that is the issue of the flood plain.
We have talked about the flood plain today and the agency in planning
terms advise—
66. Can we come back to the whole issue of planning and flood
plain because we have specific questions on that point.
(Mr Utteridge) Right.
67. You are in favour of soft engineering as a flood solution?
(Mr Utteridge) Absolutely.
(Dr Mance) I think what Bryan has just explained,
the flood plain in rural areas is an important place for the flood
to go so it does not flow through narrow constrictions through
urban areas at even greater depths. So the retention to flood
plain itself is a soft engineering solution.
68. Fine.
(Mr Utteridge) It is a sustainable solution as well.
69. The MAFF strategic statement says, and I quote, ".
. . Natural processes will not be disrupted except where important
natural and manmade assets are at risk". Is that one of your
guiding principles too?
(Dr Mance) I think it reflects practical reality.
If we have a major port structure disrupting the normal coastal
patterns, we are unlikely to completely rebuild that port structure.
We are going to have to take account of it in how we manage that
length of coastline.
70. There are difficult judgments to be made.
(Dr Mance) Yes. We do not start with a new landscape
unfortunately, we have got one that has already been built on.
(Mr Utteridge) It is a balance between supporting
the existing economy, because this is a trading nation, and what
we can effectively do where we have not got such developments.
Ms Keeble: In your evidence you say you are implementing
a structured approach to the planned maintenance of the flood
defence structures. I see from evidence that we have got from
MAFF that the National Rivers Authority, your predecessor, did
a survey of the sea defence and MAFF itself did one, the Coast
Protection Survey. I think there was another survey in 1995. Have
you resurveyed the defences or are you still working on those
results? Could you say whether you have done any survey at all
of the inland flood defences so that you would be able to say
roughly what proportion of them is in a state of decent repair?
Chairman
71. It is fair to say this MAFF evidence we have demonstrates
quite a serious situation in terms of the quality of flood defences
and quite a worrying situation.
(Mr Utteridge) If I can take the last question first.
We have recently delivered what we call a Flood Defence Management
System which is an asset based system which is standard to all
of our operating regions across England and Wales. Within the
system is prioritisation and justification for the work and also
an asset base where you survey the assets and you store the asset
base information and it is logged into record and it does not
change. Regions—as they update their asset bases—will
be using that information to inform the capital investment programmes
of the future.
Ms Keeble
72. What estimate do you have now of the percentage of coastal
defences that are fully maintained and the proportion of inland
defences?
(Mr Utteridge) I cannot quote to you the percentages
off the top of my head but to take your earlier question, we do
update the sea defence survey on a regular basis. We decide on
an annual basis which areas we are going to look at. We are changing
the asset database that we inherited to one that we believe will
give us a better feel for the overall condition of the sea defences
in England and Wales. The survey that was first done after the
Towyn incident, which was when the sea defence surveys first came
on stream, are regularly updated. We do report progress to MAFF
and the Public Accounts Committee on a regular basis.
73. How about inland flood defences? When were they last
systematically surveyed so you have a similar database to the
one you have for sea defences?
(Mr Utteridge) As I explained, regions have their
own information on the conditions of assets in their region. What
the agency has moved to, as we are now a national body with a
national overview of the infrastructure, is making sure that everybody
records the information in the same way so that we can have an
informed report on the condition nationally.
(Dr Mance) I think it is fair to say at the moment
we do not have a figure. We are half way through an exercise of
capturing and loading the information, it is quite a major exercise
which is scheduled to take place over three years. We are part
way through that programme, half way through it.
74. In another year's time we should know what the state
is of the inland flood defences?
(Mr Utteridge) What we do have, which is what I was
going to go on to say, is that each region has a five year capital
investment programme and a ten year capital investment programme.
That investment programme is put together as a result of that
region's understanding of the condition of its assets. The capital
investment is targeted at the area of greatest need within that
region.
75. What I do not get a feel for is that you are the authority
with overall responsibility in this area and I do not get the
impression either on the flood warnings or with the state of the
defences that you actually know what the position is on the ground
or that it is being actively monitored. Now that might be wrong
but that is the impression I get from the answers we have heard.
(Mr Utteridge) I can assure you that we do know the
condition of the sea defences and the sea defence survey is updated
regularly. The results of the sea defence survey drive the capital
investment.
76. The sea defence survey is being done, it is the inland
defences, overall sea and inland. I represent an inland constituency.
(Dr Mance) I can come back. We have around the country
eight different ways of assessing the state of the river defences.
Our regions at the moment have a view of the state in their region.
What we are doing, so we can answer the sort of question you are
posing and be able to give advice to the Ministry in a much more
secure basis about the future investment need, is currently rolling
out over three years a major exercise of standard capture of state
of asset and also of on-going maintenance costs which is equally
important. What we are trying to establish is a base where we
can see which structures survive for their planned life, what
their maintenance costs through that life are, so we can start
to understand which designs are most cost effective in the long
term. We do not inherit that sort of information from any predecessor
body. It does take time to put it in place but we are 18 months
into that now.
77. Could you clarify for us MAFF's prioritisation scoring
system for the allocation of capital investment? I have seen the
four or five points you have got. You also say you have reservations
concerning the existing system, could you elaborate on your comments
there and suggestions for improvement?
(Mr Utteridge) The system to which you refer is a
new system. It considers priority, it considers economics and
it considers urgency. We were party to the MAFF working party
that helped to put the system together and we believe in the first
year of its operation it is already showing that we just need
to revisit it. One of your questions specifically related to the
economic and social well being of rural communities and we have
made comments on that at various stages through our evidence.
What is clear to us is that through the priority scoring system
it is difficult again to value environmental benefits and they
do not figure within the priorities, well they do but international
sites are given something like six out of ten and by the time
you have gone through the three priorities, economics and urgency,
it is very difficult to justify work in rural areas. The other
area that we tend not to look at at the moment is the impact of
flood defence on people's lives if projects do not go ahead. One
has to accept that there is only a certain pot of money and that
one has to target, as I said earlier, at greatest area of need.
It is only by increasing that investment that we will be able
to tackle some of the projects that fall lower down the priority
scoring list otherwise they will just sit there and we will not
be able to do them.
78. You say you do not take account of the risk to human
life if projects do not go ahead but do you take account of the
risk to life in designing the project? The reason I particularly
ask that is I did notice in the Easter floods in Northamptonshire
that where commercial properties had some sort of retaining wall
or flood defence that seemed to work quite well, for the residential
property there was no protection and for the most vulnerable there
was nothing at all. Do you give priority according to the risk
to human life and also to a certain extent to the ability to people
to provide their own protection? Commercial undertakings perhaps
have a better ability to pay for retaining walls and get surveys
done and an individual person living in a small house will not
be able to do that.
(Mr Utteridge) I would say to you that the sole purpose
for carrying out flood defence works, the primary purpose, is
to safeguard human life. It is also to reduce the losses to the
economy and to the country that receive protection from those
defences, so certainly we take that into account. The powers that
we have to secure contributions from private individuals are not
very strong, we have to use our powers of persuasion rather than
having statute to be able to do that.
Ms Keeble: One further general point on your powers. It does
seem to me you have got powers to advise and you have permissive
powers but you have very few statutory powers to do things and
you seem to be under very few statutory requirements to do things.
Is that a problem for you? Would it not work better if there was
a clear responsibility on somebody to do something, not just to
advise or to consult but to do it?
Chairman
79. Before you answer that question, that leads neatly into
the introduction for my next question, the planning control of
flood plain areas. Here I look at the MAFF memorandum and I see
"discourage, encourage, take account of, consult, advise,
take account of advice" but in your memorandum—actually
you set yourself very modest objectives—you just say "discouraging
inappropriate development". Even your own objective is quite
modest: "influence, advice, guidance". It must be very
frustrating for you.
(Dr Mance) Yes.
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