Examination of witnesses (Questions 520 - 542)
WEDNESDAY 17 JUNE 1998
MR CHRIS
DAVIES, MR
KEITH RIDDELL,
MR JEREMY
MOODY and MR
TOM WHITE
520. If we can move a little further on, you have already
heard the discussion concerning managed retreat or managed realignment
and that would appear to be gaining credence as perhaps a way
forward. Is that going to be evaluated in your future reports
whilst the issue of compensation remains unresolved?
(Mr White) Let me take two different areas. If
you take the Wash basin, I personally do not understand the concept
of managed retreat because, as you retreat further inland, the
land gets lower and, therefore, before you know where you are
you are in Cambridge. It is not true if you do it on, for example,
the North Norfolk coast, where the sea defences are only one field
away from higher land. So there is an argument there that you
might have managed retreat to a natural defence and there may
be a gain then in terms of habitat. Personally I would lose a
holiday home but that is not, presumably, any concern of yours.
Chairman
521. We will compensate you.
(Mr White) But managed retreat in terms of the
grade one land surrounding the Wash I do not conceive as being
an option.
Mr Hurst
522. But if one broadened it further, certainly there
are areas where managed retreat could take place unless there
was a question of compensation, or I think the other word used
was incentives—we live in an age, do we not, when we are
never certain what this word precisely means ,but in any event
unresolved questions of compensation, and that could make a significant
difference to the evaluation you would put on the future of that
land depending on the popularity of managed retreat as a policy?
(Mr White) Yes, it would, and at all times we
have to evaluate all the factors relating to the value of any
particular property for which we are giving advice and, therefore,
if there is a potential for managed retreat relating to that property,
we will be bound not only to protect our own professional indemnity
but for professional reasons to give advice on it and it will
have valuation implications.
523. But do you see any risk of blighting this land or
some lands pending the resolution of the issues?
(Mr White) Yes, certainly.
(Mr Moody) Yes, we had a specific case reported
to us which came in after the evidence was submitted to you from
the North Norfolk coast. A particular block of fields has a dyke
against the sea. The proposal from the Environment Agency is that
that dyke be breached in the particular circumstances of that
area. There are issues then about the fate of that land but more
particularly the owner then has land that bit inland which would
not be affected but for the fact that he draws his irrigation
water for his potato operation on that inland from an area that
would be affected by the ingress of the sea, and the Environment
Agency are at the moment not being desperately helpful about being
able to give him assurances about whether he would be able to
get a replacement irrigation licence, which fundamentally affects
what he can do with his other land. He would have to go through
the normal application process, which may take a long time, may
be uncertain, may be clouded by other factors. That would dramatically
affect his land should it be put on the market under that uncertainty.
Chairman: Mr White, you mentioned Mr Hayes' local area.
I think Mr Hayes has some questions to pursue.
Mr Hayes
524. I am very grateful, Chairman. First of all, Mr White,
I would like to endorse two of the things you said, one about
the success of the IDB and to celebrate that and, to hope that
be strengthened, with the greatest respect to the Committee and
the Chairman, or at least maintained; and secondly, the issue
about the value of land in certainly my constituency and the surrounding
area. And yet, although I entirely endorse what you said about
those two things, that we want to celebrate them, you do say in
your evidence—I am reading it now—that there is a
degree of what you describe as official confusion about policy.
I think you gave the game away to some degree in what you said
a few moments ago. You said that we take our drainage, and by
implication coastal issues, somewhat more seriously than others.
Is not the problem that whilst there are pockets of very good
activity—and I agree with you that we are a good example
of that—nationally that consistency, that seriousness, is
not always repeated and, therefore, is there not an argument which
says that, certainly in respect of coastal policy, you need a
greater degree of consistency as far as implementation is concerned
to match the over-arching strategy that is delivered by Government?
So what I am arguing with you—and I want you to comment
on it—is that we are a good example of how the system works
in respect of IDBs and, indeed, to some degree in respect of coastal
policy as a result, but that is not repeated everywhere?
(Mr White) It is more difficult for me to comment
on the experience of others, in Devon, for example, because I
do not know. All I know is that in our case it is simpler perhaps
because it is a managed coast line, it comes under the control
of the Environment Agency, whereas in other parts of the world
it will come under the control of maritime district councils who
may or may not be efficient in what they do, and there then might
also be environmental concerns of all the other bodies that we
have heard referred to today. So it is a clear priority in our
part of the world to maintain sea defences, so that the Internal
Drainage Board and the Environment Agency will work closely together,
at the same time taking into account the environmental benefits
of the land on the seaward side of the sea bank. The priorities
are much more straightforward and you have two very professional
bodies, the Drainage Board and the Environment Agency, in control
of the operation. When you go round the coastline presumably and
you move from one maritime drainage board to a borough council
to the next maritime drainage board and a whole host of other
bodies putting their oar in as well, I can see where the confusion
arises, and you have this incident particularly at, say, the Brancaster
Golf Club, where half the people in the area want to keep it and
half want it to be the subject of managed retreat. It depends
whether you are a golfer or not.
525. There are two further points in that regard. So
the solution might be then, the IDBs to deliver local accountability,
which they clearly do very well, the Environment Agency to provide
a degree of strategy and perhaps county councils involved in the
process to give some sort of county-wide feel, and not district
councils?
(Mr White) I think my only comment would be that
it is less important to me who does it than that they have an
expertise in the subject.
526. Yes, I take your point. I was perhaps being a little
provocative.
(Mr White) No, it is fair comment.
527. You did say that the inconsistencies delivered may
be as a result of too parochial a view?
(Mr White) I think as you move around the coastline
you go from one body to another and we have a long coastline that
is managed by the Environment Agency and, therefore, it is relatively
straightforward. I just do not know what happens in other areas
where you drift from one body to another.
528. Finally, you talk about the East Anglian coast leaving
the sense (is the phrase you use) that "the outcome is managed
retreat punctuated by bursts of activity". Given what you
said about the topography of the coastline, that may well be a
logical perspective, so it may be that what seems to be irrational—North
Norfolk with its managed retreat and a policy which deals with
that appropriately, Lincolnshire with maintenance, or perhaps
even expansion, Chairman, further, who knows—might be, because
of the demography and topography, an appropriate solution?
(Mr White) Anything is possible.
(Mr Moody) Those particular comments on the East
Anglian coast were largely drawn from representations from Suffolk,
where I think you have been more recently, where, on the reports
that have reached us, Suffolk Coastal convened a meeting last
autumn at which it appeared that all the technical experts who
were drafted in to advise the various parties fundamentally disagreed
on the technical analysis of the issues, the problems and the
solutions, together with the fact that once you start moving away
from a body as focused as an IDB, or even to an extent the Environment
Agency, you are dealing with a body with other calls on their
capital and revenue allocations and with many competing policy
goals. The coastline plans which appear to be emerging at county
level, whether by accretion of districts or by actual action of
counties as the old structure planning authorities, I am not clear,
appear to offer a framework in which you can begin to command
some assent but the level of technical doubt once you start reaching
local problems—because you mentioned an over-arching national
policy and I think most of the country is fairly unaware that
there is an over-arching national policy, and one of the reasons
for stating here in our evidence a request that, while the Fens
regard the idea of abandonment as being incomprehensible, you
can be sure also elsewhere there is this picture of confusion
and uncertain activity, technical doubt as to what actually can
and cannot be done, technical doubt as to what the effects of
doing anything are, given then the structure of competing policy
objectives, as to whether you listen more to particular environmental
causes or to residential areas or to the areas of farmland. There
has been a sense, I think, in drafting one or two of the coastal
plans, that the rural community has not felt itself particularly
drawn into those discussions, yet it is very often on the receiving
end of managed retreat or failure of policy.
Mr Mitchell
529. Who is going to provide that over-arching national
policy?
(Mr Moody) If it were to be provided, it would
clearly be a matter for Government.
530. Which department?
(Mr Moody) I do not think we strictly have a view
as to which department. Obviously I can see the claims that would
come from the DETR, from the Ministry of Agriculture, from liaison
with the devolved bodies in Wales and Scotland.
531. But you are saying effectively MAFF is not doing
it properly now?
(Mr Moody) If it is an over-arching national strategy
to be looked for, then if it exists it is not apparent. That may
not be a problem because the problems that reveal themselves are
of their nature local. You would have a problem in Grimsby from
the interaction of policy with whatever the circumstances on the
coast in your constituency were on a policy which might be driven
then by the concerns of Northumberland or Cornwall.
532. But if it is an argument between different local
interests as to what policy is appropriate locally—and I
took it when you quoted that lovely quote about the outcome is
managed retreat punctuated by bursts of presumably hard defence
activity on the East Anglian coast, you were not talking geographically,
you were taking temporally, in other words, punctuated in time
periods because the policy keeps changing?
(Mr Moody) Yes. That is the impression that our
people along the Suffolk coast have on the ground about what has
been going on.
533. That is presumably because of the conflict of local
interests. So if there is a national policy, a national overall
policy, it could obviate that because it could pursue some policy
which is in the national interest rather than having it dictated
by squabbling local interests?
(Mr Moody) It could lay out a policy. That policy
would doubtless have exceptions and qualifications. Because it
was over-arching and national it would then hit the funding or
the funding ability of whatever local body was given that responsibility,
and that again is the delight of the IDBs, that they have got
their money deliberately for that pot. They hold themselves out
to their specific public to do that and they deliver schemes which
are at a higher level of expenditure than might otherwise be permitted,
and the value of that has been seen this spring in large areas
of the Fens, and you hit the issues of financial ability and you
hit the issues of technical competence. Not only is the authority
capable of retaining adequate staff to do the job but can they
then agree on what the identified problem is and what the technical
answers are, because that would seem to be a major difficulty
on some of these coastal questions, that the currents are not
necessarily fully known, the power, there may be a reluctance
in some quarters fully to understand what the power may or may
not be. These beg the problems that a national strategy would
run into.
Chairman
534. I think Mr Riddell wants to add something.
(Mr Riddell) If I may. Although I agree with the
comments being made about the local divisions of interest and
perhaps even conflicts between adjacent authorities, this issue
is starting to be addressed and shoreline management plans have
been mentioned earlier in submissions of evidence. These are being
prepared by coastal groups that are formed of all the interested
parties in what is a natural regional division along a coastline
at least, which is the concept of cells and sub-cells along the
coast where activities in one cell have been determined as having
not too much influence at least on activities in adjacent cells.
Those coastal groups have been encouraged to come together by
the present central government agency, which is MAFF Flood and
Coastal Defence Division, and in fact they are working towards
achieving more harmony within their individual cells and consistency
of policy across each cell. The over-arching policy that has been
described can only be one of philosophy, if you like, because
the individual problems to be addressed are local problems, are
local issues. It is a philosophy of how to approach the solution
of those problems.
Mr Mitchell
535. Let me interrupt you there. What department is best
to provide that philosophy—Environment or MAFF?
(Mr Riddell) At present this is a particular department
within MAFF, which is the Flood and Coastal Defence Division.
That department does the job at the moment. You could put it anywhere.
It is not really the Institution's concern where it goes but it
is clear to the Institution that such a department is necessary
and it has a certain degree of autonomy and independence from
its parent organisation.
536. Given as much priority as agricultural land and
the environment is more about planning and development, it might
be more logically in Environment?
(Mr Riddell) It may well be.
537. Do I detect a difference of view here between the
valuers as projecting a future of infinite chaos and the engineers,
who are saying things can only get better, indeed they are getting
better? Is there is a difference of view?
(Mr Moody) I think there is certainly a difference
of perspective in that I understand the engineers are engaged
in the projects and the process more closely than we are, whereas
we and our clients are involved, if you like, on the receiving
end of the system. For example, I have now a map in front of me
from the shoreline management plan for Devon where the whole thing
has run into the sand because certain proposals put forward have
caused so much local outrage and confusion that four years later
the matter is returned to the starting-point. To an extent that
may well be more evident because of the introduction of the shoreline
management plan proposal, that it has brought these issues out
into the open and it is forcing an initial resolution of them
which can then evolve over time. So I suspect the difference which
you are seeing lies to some extent in the perspective that we
tend to be there to pick up the problems that are left once the
powers-that-be have rolled by, but equally you are seeing a number
of these issues flushed out by the kind of debate you are having
with this inquiry and developed shoreline management plans and
so forth.
538. Do either of you see a role for regions, following
Mr Todd's questions? We are now establishing regional development
agencies. We shall move on, after Labour's triumphal return at
the next election, to regional governments. Can they play a part
in certainly the democratic side of the input?
(Mr Moody) I think there will be a wariness from
our end, partly because of the DETR boundaries of the regions
we were discussing earlier on, to have another cook with a spoon
in the broth. Already we have listed the litany of institutions
that are involved and I am not necessarily clear that there is
merit in a further one.
Chairman
539. It is worth remembering that, although they are
enthusiasts for regional government, perhaps Labour's plans would
involving the merging of district and county councils, unitary
authorities. You would lose one and gain one?
(Mr Moody) Leaving this point aside, when it comes
to that sense of democratic involvement, this is where, again
going back to the IDBs, the IDBs for this one specific issue do
appear to be able to command and practise that level of assent
and involvement to sustain a higher level of expenditure than
would probably otherwise be implemented, whose fruits we have
seen in the eastern areas of the IDBs this spring, where we are
uncertain from the reports that have come in from members that
have led to this evidence, that there is that same sense of identification
even with district councils. It is hard to see that at regional
level the people affected, as at Braunton or Brancaster or Holderness
or any of the other places, would necessarily feel that they had
a voice at the table on the issues that see their farms being
flooded by the sea or falling off the edge of the cliff.
(Mr White) It is very difficult to know the dilemma
between having a local involvement and one that is highly respected
like the drainage boards, and you might, therefore, say that such
decisions should be at a local level. On the other hand, elsewhere
you get all these parochial concerns which prevent any action
being taken at all and you might then say you should have some
dead hand of bureaucracy somewhere else that makes all the decisions.
Mr Mitchell
540. It is not necessarily a dead hand.
(Mr White) But it could be.
541. It could not be, too. What do the engineers think
about the regional impact?
(Mr Davies) I think in terms of the coastal and
inland flooding issues, things are being looked at on a more regional
basis in general. For instance, the Environment Agency is now
split into a small number of regions and looks at things on a
regional basis. We talked about the development of shoreline management
plans. They are looking at the coastline on a regional basis,
so things are being done within the existing framework. I think
that whatever framework you have you still have this problem of
implementing schemes with a local base. For instance, shoreline
management plans all consider four different policy options for
the coastline, and one of those options is managed realignment.
My friends on the left commented on a local issue. I think I can
support or make comment about the national issue because we have
been involved in many shoreline management plans around the coast
and also with many maritime districts and many areas of the Environment
Agency. The shoreline management plans, I think, will be largely
produced to cover most of the coastline of England and Wales within
the next few months and I think they will come up with proposals
that include managed realignment and I think none of the plans
will end up at this time totally accepted by everybody. I think
it will be a long time before any of them are totally accepted.
They go into the public forum for consultation. They have been
developed within the public forum, and to my knowledge many of
them are not totally agreed and accepted by everybody. I think
inevitably they will not be totally agreed and accepted by everybody.
It is a case really of trying to get a balanced view of policy.
Whatever we have set up we will still have a local problem.
(Mr Riddell) I think it should be remembered,
first, that it is early days for shoreline management plans yet,
and only now is a picture emerging of trends around the country
and where regional priorities perhaps lie. Secondly, it should
not be forgotten that they were always intended to be dynamic
documents and subject to periodic review at intervals of not greater
than five years. So we are almost coming up to the first review
on the first ones to be undertaken, and perhaps thirdly, they
were only one input into the democratic process because I do not
think, whatever one's specialisation is, one can say that this
is the definitive be-all and end-all for Holderness or whatever.
There are a lot of other factors that come into play. I would
hope that in due course shoreline management plans are incorporated
into something that seems to be slower in getting off the ground
which is coastal zone management plans. If we adopted the definition
of Australia and the United States the whole of Great Britain
would be in the coastal zone in any case. This obviously has much
wider reaching implications.
(Mr Moody) Looking at the issue at a slightly
lower level, the reasons why the regional water authorities and
other companies were established in the terms they were was to
reflect natural catchment areas. Those almost universally fail
to respect any known regional boundaries. They divide estuaries,
whether it be the Dee, the Humber or the Severn. In the Chairman's
own case the storm which would have hit the boundaries between
the South East and East Midlands and West Midlands and the Warwickshire
and Northhamptonshire borders would have flowed out through Gloucester
and the South West. These problems will endure and it is not obvious
that the regional authorities could appropriately be involved
in those issues.
Mr Mitchell: One final question which comes with my
apologies for coming in late because you will almost certainly
have dealt with this. You both look to me like big spenders, the
valuers because you want to preserve the land and its value and
the engineers because they want to do the work.
Chairman: I started with that one!
Mr Mitchell: I do not know if there is an urgent need
to increase the level of expenditure on flood and coastal defences
but it is more jobs for the boys. Now, am I unfair in making the
connection between spending and the somewhat sceptical attitude
about managed retreat.
Chairman: I think we should direct that primarily to
the valuers because the engineers have dealt with that one.
Mr Mitchell
542. I think the valuers sneer more in their evidence.
(Mr Moody) It might give opportunities for valuations
to rise. It is not necessary to assume that it all cuts one way.
(Mr White) We thrive on change, yes!
(Mr Moody) We thrive on change. So we would draw
a distinction between our responses on managed retreat where clearly
there is evidence that managed retreat may well be the inevitable
answer whatever policy changes because the sea will do managed
retreat for you. But for the people who currently have expectations
which are disturbed by the deliberate actions of policy making
bodies, as my man on the Norfolk coast with his irrigation question,
their concerns should be properly understood where policy is changed.
Beyond that we take the Fens as a very large area of England of
very considerable economic importance generating a large aspect
of the agricultural economy that lies outside the CAP, trading
in the world on its own merits not caught up with arable area
aid and the rest of the game, whose future depends on there being
proper flood and coastal defences.
(Mr White) I have good news for Mr Mitchell in
that I am assured by the various local drainage boards that the
present height of the sea defences is sufficient for several decades.
On the basis that the change is two foot in 100 years, one foot
for tilt and one foot for rising sea levels, this is all manageable
in their book. Although each metre that you add to a sea bank
is mathematically more expensive than the last one because it
gets bigger and bigger and one swing of the jib would no longer
do it and you have to have borrow pits, two or three, and as we
know the Wash is such a special place one may have to take the
soil for raising sea banks from inside the sea bank rather than
upset the environmentalists by taking it out of the marsh, it
is all manageable and for the short term, indeed the medium term,
there does not appear to be any need to incur any expense, if
that helps you.
(Mr Riddell) If I could expand slightly on the
engineers' response to the Chairman earlier. We both represent
consulting engineers and these days we make our living from providing
effective advice and management of our coastlines and rivers and
really we do not have a vested interest any longer in necessarily
constructing major capital works. In fact, if programmes require
extensive monitoring going on for years to come we are guaranteed
of an income rather more than sticking big lumps of concrete in
the way of the sea. But the comment made about spending was really
related to circumstances as they are derived. We have spoken before
about only now starting to get a national and regional picture
of where priorities lie and I think the Institution wishes to
draw attention to the fact that once strategies have been identified,
once policies have been committed to for particular areas, once
the scale of the problems has for any particular area been calculated,
then these problems are not going to go away. They are not problems
that will cure themselves and they are not problems that will
decrease in cost over time and therefore once the level of spending
is established that is necessary to both cater for policy and
cope with existing problems then putting it off is not going to
save any money; it is just going to get more expensive as time
goes on. As yet I do not think we have formed a definite impression
of how much that sum of money is.
(Mr Moody) On that point we have been observing
in a number of areas in the country whether it be the South West
or the Humber is the sense that at the moment the Environment
Agency has been reluctant to be involved in particular revenue
expenditure which has then been accumulating a backlog of capital
works. The sluices have not been desilted and they have not maintained
things. At some point those chickens are going to come home to
roost with the need for a considerable capital requirement which
will result in no fees whatsoever for our people and we have members
who would then still be actively engaged in dealing with foreshore
income.
Chairman: I think that concludes our questioning. Would
you like to make any points by way of conclusion? I do not see
an immediate rush to offer any further evidence so can I express
our gratitude. We are greatly reassured that self interest is
not necessarily contrary to the other aspirations we all have
of flood and coastal defence. So thank you very much indeed.
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