Examination of Witnesses (Questions 384-399)
DR DAVID
KING AND
MR PHIL
ROTHWELL
17 OCTOBER 2006
Chair: Good afternoon, gentleman. Anne
Main, sea defences.
Q384 Anne Main: Obviously some areas
would specifically welcome sea defences and others may say they
are not good things particularly if they are further down the
coast and may feel that they are being impacted on, but how do
you feel that sea defences could possibly lead to any form of
overall regeneration of an area?
Dr King: Firstly, in terms of
us progressing our capital programme we have a guiding principle,
which is about trying to derive multiple benefits for the investment
that is made, and quite often that is regeneration—regeneration
is not the prime purpose, it is clearly about protecting people
and property, but there are numerous examples around the coast,
in Hull, in Harwich, where regeneration comes on the back of the
infrastructure investment that the agency has put in. I think
the issue is not that people think sea defences or managing flood
risk is a bad thing, the opinion really is what is the appropriate
intervention, are we going to build a defence, whether that is
a hard engineering structure or whether it is a soft engineering
solution, such as managed re-alignment.
Q385 Anne Main: To pick you up on
the point you just said, you actually said that the principal
reason is for the defence of people's homes, and regeneration
may well follow from that.
Dr King: That is correct because
our principal mandate is about protecting people, property and
the environment, but clearly where there is an opportunity to
bring funding streams together, to derive multiple benefits such
as regeneration, then we would do so.
Q386 Anne Main: Would you agree that
the Environment Agency should be thinking more creatively about
ways in which investment in sea defences could benefit local communities
economically as well as environmentally?
Dr King: We do that already because
our investment is very much done on the basis of a cost benefit
analysis, and built into that are both social and environmental
benefits as well. So it is part of the evaluation of whether we
put in investment or not.
Q387 Anne Main: Could you give a
little more explanation of how you do your cost benefit analysis?
Dr King: Clearly the situation
with sea defences, or indeed coastal erosion, is that there is
a limited pot of money, and therefore we need to put in the investment
where we get the maximum benefit in terms of reducing risk, so
there is a cost benefit equation that would apply to any particular
scheme, and in general the benefit cost for defence schemes is
very, very good. So even at the margins we are getting six to
one benefits, and many of our schemes are much better than that.
Q388 Martin Horwood: In your evidence
you have provided some specific examples of towns, for example
Happisburgh, where there is an issue about long-term sustainability
and viability, and you have lots of national tools, flood risk
maps, coastal erosion maps, shoreline management plans, and so
on. But do you have a picture overall for the country how many
towns or which towns do have issues of long term viability and
sustainability, like Happisburgh?
Dr King: We do not have a complete
picture but the overriding message in terms of climate change
is that the risk on the coast will increase, and we are going
through a process of strategic planning which is built into the
shoreline management planning process, where basically the coast
in England and Wales is divided up into about 30 different coastal
cells, and that will give much more precise information. But clearly
we know, for example, in the Humber or at Happisburgh or around
the Essex coast, that there are areas there that will be in the
frontline of the impacts of climate change.
Q389 Martin Horwood: So do you have
any sense, for instance, of how many people are likely to be affected
by 2050 or by 2080?
Dr King: Currently in coastal
communities that are exposed to risk there is in excess of one
million people, and probably in the order of 120 billion in terms
of infrastructure, but obviously the amount of risk varies in
different parts of the coast. For example, if you take somewhere
like London and, indeed, part of the Thames Gateway where you
have defences there which provide a very high standard of defence,
one in a 1000 years, while other parts of the coast might be as
low as one in 50. So the risk exposure is different.
Q390 Martin Horwood: This is both
a risk of coast erosion and of repeated flood events. You talk
about once in 100 year flood event happening once every three
years?
Dr King: Correct. I think that
is one of the key messages that we are delivering in our evidence,
that our sustainable communities on the coast need to recognise
and adapt to the risk presented by climate change, and the evidence
is that every iteration of the science shows that climate change
is biting faster than we thought previously. So there is a big
risk and there is a need for good adaptation policy.
Q391 Martin Horwood: So those communities
that are going to be at risk of erosion, of repeated flood events
and where there are issues of long term viability, do you think
that government is doing enough—or let us put it collectively,
politicians are doing enough—to identify ways in which alternatives
like relocation should be pursued?
Dr King: I think there is certainly
room for more innovative thinking because clearly if you take
the example of Happisburgh, which has lost something like 25 properties
in as many years, and where coastal erosion is quite aggressive—it
can be a metre or two metres in a storm event—what preys
heavily on people is compensation for their property, and I think
that government and indeed local government need to think creatively
about how they can help communities to adapt to changes.
Q392 Martin Horwood: Do you have
a specific proposal? Do you think that compensation is the right
route?
Dr King: Clearly there are opportunities
for purchase of properties, leaseback, as we pointed out in our
evidence, which would certainly ease it. Government is very nervous
in talking about compensation, but my colleague is part of a government
working group on adaptation tools and might be able to comment
on that.
Mr Rothwell: Under the Government's
strategy for flood and coastal erosion risk, Making Space for
Water is a programme of work looking at adaptation and how
we can help communities that are risk, and where it is likely
to be uneconomic to continue defence or even to put any defence
in. We are looking at a number of different options, including
working with Regional Development Agencies and local authorities
to move the planning envelope back so that over a period of time—and
we are talking, 10s, 20, 50, 100 years—there is an opportunity
to move and envelope of the town and the settlement back. We are
looking at buy-out of property and then lease back; we are looking
at insurance and assurance as a possible route. So there are a
number of different options and we are due to report back by the
end of the year.
Q393 Chair: Which department are
you reporting back to?
Mr Rothwell: To Defra.
Q394 Martin Horwood: When you are
talking about compensation or even schemes like lease back or
buy-out you are still talking about somebody locally taking the
burden of cost, whether it is the district council or whatever,
but are you advocating to government that there should be some
more national scheme to effectively compensate people for the
consequences of climate change and not place all the burden on
particular local communities?
Mr Rothwell: That is one of the
options we are looking at; we are also looking at existing powers
like local government well-being powers that can be used to channel
the money into community development to ensure community coherence,
which is another option. So there is a range of different options
being looked at.
Q395 Anne Main: On the buy-out and
lease back, I would like to explore that a little further. That
is a massively costly proposal, I would have thought. Are you
suggesting that there is any time limitation so that people would
have a particular period of time, given that you have said that
this erosion has speeded up significantly, possibly more than
anybody could have forecast? Would you say that people five or
six years ago would not be eligible because they should have seen
it coming? Is there some sort of time scheme limit on this?
Mr Rothwell: This is very early
days and it is too early to put flesh on the bones. If you look
at the number of properties that have suffered from erosion and
fallen off cliffs or are about to, it is actually a relatively
small number, but the ongoing risk will mean that number will
grow. At present we are looking into exactly how big a problem
it is.
Q396 Chair: Can we move on to the
planning changes that might be required? Reading your submission,
basically you have told certain settlements to call it a day and
go, basically, and accept the inevitable, and others to shift
themselves geographically, essentially, over time in order to
move themselves away from the threat, really. Are the current
planning arrangements adequate to achieve that, or do you need
an increase in powers to insist that the local development frameworks,
for example, take account of your guidance and the shoreline management
plans, for example?
Dr King: As you might expect,
the planning framework around both coastal erosion and indeed
coast and flood defence is quite complex and operates under different
bits of legislation. For example, the primary legislation that
the Agency would work under is the Land Drainage Act that dates
back to 1974; coastal erosion goes back to 1949. So clearly there
are opportunities to combine both of those and in combining them
to recognise the increasing knowledge and to gain knowledge over
that period of time. But we have certainly seen in the last three
to four years significant improvement in the planning around flood
risk management through PPG25 and its replacement, which is due
later this year, PPS25, but in terms of coastal erosion and coastal
planning it is mostly about PPG20, which is again about 14 or
15 years old, and certainly again our knowledge of climate change
has significantly moved on, indeed as has our understanding of
what sustainable development is and what are sustainable communities,
and we think that that could be updated.
Q397 Martin Horwood: You also at
various stages in your submissions talk about the potential of
the greater role for the Environment Agency for more flexible
powers. Do you want to expand on that at all?
Dr King: The government produced
its strategy for coastal erosion and flood management a number
of years ago, called Making Space for Water. In giving
that direction of travel they indicated that there should be a
greater role for the Agency in terms of all things flood management
and coastal erosion. They are currently consulting on that with
the objective of having one body that would have the overall strategic
view. The prime mechanism is through shoreline management plans,
and shoreline management plans are drawn up both by ourselves
or indeed local authorities, but plans, as you well recognise,
are only as good as how well they are picked up, and that is clearly
an issue at the moment. While the planning process and shoreline
management plan is good and takes the right time horizon, it is
how you embed those and make them relevant to regional development
strategies, local development frameworks, et cetera, and we believe
that if they were statutory, similar to the river basin plans
that are required under the framework directive, it would greatly
help.
Q398 Chair: Can you clarify, the
river basin plans, are they statutory at the moment?
Dr King: The river basin plans
are statutory plans; that is a new plan that is required under
the EC directive of the water framework directive and they will
be in place from 2015.
Mr Rothwell: They have to be fully
in place by 2015.
Q399 Chair: 2015?
Mr Rothwell: Yes. The first phase
is now being worked on with a view to finalising the first phase
by 2009, but they have to be fully in place by 2015.
| 
