Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 10 OCTOBER 2007
BARONESS YOUNG
OF OLD
SCONE, DR
DAVID KING
AND MR
DAVID ROOKE
Q60 David Taylor:
A moment or two ago you said that the Agency needed hugely increased
resources to be able to respond to flood risk management in a
way which would satisfy more people. I think that is what you
said.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: What
I meant was that you would have to have an awful lot of money
around in the flood risk management system to be able to do everything
in the rural areas that people ideally want us to do. We think
that the amount of funding that has come into flood risk management
which has doubled since 1997 is going in the right direction and
the £200 million that the prime minister announced in the
middle of the floods is extremely beneficial.
Q61 David Taylor:
Your budget for flood risk management in this year, 2007/08, is
£600 million and the Secretary of State for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs today announced in a written answer that
that would go up to £650 million next year, £700 million—both
leaps of about eight per cent—in the year 2009/10 and in
2010/11 it will go up £100 million to £800 million.
They seem very substantial increases with the backdrop that we
heard announced yesterday by the Chancellor. They are hugely increased
resources are they not? Does that mean that the future is set
fair to be able to respond to some of the concerns my colleague
James Gray referred to?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
are very pleased with the way in which funding has increased over
each of the Spending Reviews and we are very pleased about getting
additional funding for the next three years and also to see what
is going to come in year one and two as well as year three because
we need to get planning to use that money. However, we do not
think it is the end of the road by any means. This will allow
us to tackle the backlog of flood defence schemes that have been
waiting for communities that are inadequately defended, for example
Leeds which is not defended particularly at the moment and is
a huge economic asset for the nation if it went under. It will
allow us to improve the amount of maintenance we do on our high
risk and medium risk assets to make sure they are all up to the
standard that they ought to be, but there are still pressures
for the future both in terms of creating new assets and in maintaining
the growing body of assets, in coping with the fact that climate
change is going to mean that we need to increase the standard
of protection in many of our flood defence systems. If we take
the Thames barrier, for example, and the whole Thames Estuary
system, we could be looking at several billion required to invest
in bringing that up to scratch for climate change. Of course we
have more properties being built as a result of the development
boom, all of which are going to require some flood risk assessment
if not flood defences. We think that the assessments that were
made by the Foresight study which said that we should be
aiming for a billion pounds a year investment by 2015 are in fact
in the right ball park and we would want the following spending
review (the one after this) to continue that upward trajectory
of investment. I do not think it is Christmas and birthday yet;
it is good but it is not the end of the road.
Q62 Mr Williams:
Those of us who have contacted the Environment Agency from time
to time about the maintenance of water courses have been told
that the Environment Agency responsibility is only for main water
courses. Is that an arbitrary decision that has been taken by
the Environment Agency or does that rest in legislation?
Mr Rooke: It is written in legislation
and we have only got powers to do works on what are called main
rivers. A main river is a river that is marked on a map that has
been approved by the Secretary of State.
Q63 Mr Williams:
Where do we see those maps?
Mr Rooke: They are available on
the Defra website and they are also available in our offices.
Q64 Mr Williams:
It does seem to me that a lot of responsibility for maintaining
water courses does rest with private individuals and it is not
very encouraging for those private individuals to be involved
in very expensive work if they see that the water courses that
they are responsible for which flow into the water courses that
the Environment Agency are responsible for are not going to be
maintained in a way that is thought to be acceptable. I am not
promoting scouring out water courses but as Baroness Young said
there is a middle way here and the Environment Agency have a responsibility
to play their part in what is a private/public responsibility.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: I
would agree and where we have internal drainage boards that represent
particularly agricultural riparian owners of these smaller water
courses, we do have quite an intense relationship about how the
funding that they provide to us for carriage of water away from
their area most effectively works. I am sure you have had a submission
from the Association of Drainage Authorities on that one. Where
it is more complicated is where there is no internal drainage
board and where we are dealing with a very large number of riparian
owners and that becomes extremely complicated. It may well be
that there needs to be this debate about what the relative priorities
between urban and rural are. As I said, I would not want us to
get back to a point where we were simply carrying out maintenance
for maintenance sake rather than truly reducing flood risk.
Q65 Lynne Jones:
You were referring earlier to the need for mapping and modelling
of urban drainage systems and you said this would be extremely
expensive and you started talking about concentrating on hot spots.
Could you perhaps elaborate further on what is exactly a workable
risk based methodology for characterising urban flood risk that
you envisage?
Mr Rooke: That is a piece of work
that we would want to take forward once we have the green light
from government in terms of giving us the overview on urban flooding.
There is some work that Defra is undertaking with the Met Office
that we are involved with on characterisation of extreme flood
events, the types of rainfall, and there is various work being
done by some of the universities and some local authorities. I
think in Scotland Glasgow is a good example of where there was
urban flooding some years ago and the local authority, with loads
of other partners, have got together to come up with solutions.
At the urban level a solution can be down to what height is a
particular kerb on a road, what green spaces can be used to store
water or to channel water if the sewers cannot take it, so it
does get very local. In terms of our ambition were we to be given
this England overview, working with the Met Office we would be
able to forecast where these so called pluvial events—as
opposed to fluvial being rivers—would take place and provide
a warning for that, and to be able to provide a mapping of those
areas so that you could go onto our website where you can at the
moment see whether your house is on the floodplain or not, you
would be able to go onto our website and see what risks there
were from surface water flooding. Then the local authorities,
water companies, the Highway Agency and ourselves involved in
urban areas would again be working together under our leadership
to provide solutions.
Q66 Lynne Jones:
How feasible is such an approach in a very widespread manner?
What input does the insurance industry have into this work because
they have their own mapping system for flood risk?
Mr Rooke: We want to work with
the insurance industry as we do at the moment. We provide information
to the insurance industry that is also available to the public
on our website. We provide that to the insurance industry. We
envisage that we would do the same, but this will need powers
from government; it will need funding from government to enable
us to put in place all this new technology and there will be some
groundbreaking stuff. It is done in some other parts of the world
and we want to learn from that.
Q67 Lynne Jones:
Which other parts of the world?
Mr Rooke: Certainly parts of Europe
where they are taking forward urban flooding and experiencing
urban floods. Also, interestingly (Barbara had an e-mail from
a company the other day on this in terms of intense, heavy rainfall)
in parts of the Middle East.
Q68 Lynne Jones:
What about individual responsibility? A lot of people are concreting
over their gardens, even their back gardens; should there be some
control over this?
Mr Rooke: There is an interesting
statistic; we can give you a note on it in terms of the number
of gardens that have been paved over in London over the last five
years and it will be having a significant impact in terms of water
no longer being able to get into the ground and be stored in the
ground and is running straight off into sewers. We are advocating
what we call sustainable urban drainage systems such that where
there are new developments taking place we would want them to
drain through SUDS before they come into a sewer system or before
they come into a river system such that you would try to replicate
the run off had it still been agricultural land.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Could
I just comment on the overview role because I think what David
has described by way of mapping, forecasting and warning is ambitious.
I do not know whether it is do-able quite frankly. I think technically
you could do it ultimately, but whether as a nation we are able
to afford to do that is a moot point. The second issue for me
is in terms of actually taking action to make sure that urban
drainage and sewerage systems are actually as flood proof as possible
and there it has to be the local authority in the lead co-ordinating
the local partners, including us, using our information but very
much taking the lead because they are the people who are the planning
authority, they are sometimes the highways authority, they are
certainly in touch with developers and re-developers. Just looking
at the task, as it were, of re-draining our cities I do not think
we are going to see a scale of investment that would allow that
to happen wholesale. I suspect that what we need to press for
is first of all to make sure that no new development goes ahead
with inadequate drainage and sewerage and we have some powers
under PPS25 in that, and secondly to make sure that re-development
re-develops the sewerage and drainage systems as well as the actual
properties themselves. Thirdly, focussing on the priorities—the
hot spots—where traditionally we know there have been problems.
If we can make fast progress in solving those three priorities
the remainder of urban drainage systems can come along behind
that.
Q69 Chairman:
You have given us the Barbara Young "if we can make progress"
shopping list, have you specifically made formal recommendation
to Defra that those items be actioned?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: All
the policy proposals and changes that we have outlined in our
evidence have of course gone to Defra as well.
Q70 Chairman:
Specifically to ask local authorities to start, for example, a
scoping study on the capability of their own drainage systems
to cope with the types of event that we have been discussing.
Have you asked for that to be done?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
know that some local authorities that were involved in the flooding
this year are now beginning to look at that as an issue, but Defra's
position at the moment is, having consulted on the role that we
should have in overview, they want to wait until they get the
Michael Pitt recommendations before they work out, as it were,
what the system will look like so that it is clear what our responsibility
would be and what the local authority's responsibility would be.
Q71 Chairman:
Do local authorities have the resources and expertise to do that
work?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: I
do not think at the moment anybody really has the resources and
expertise to do that work. The few places we have done it are
beginning to develop that expertise and the 15 pilots sponsored
by Defra on urban drainage and urban surface water issues are
beginning to develop track record in that so it can be spread
more widely.
Q72 Mr Gray:
Why do we not just have one major agency for flooding? What is
wrong with that?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: There
have been two sorts of one-stop shop proposed really and I think
there is a third emerging. One is a kind of emergency floods agency
that does everything from predicting the weather down to restoring
individual houses and sorting out benefits for people which I
think is clearly not on because the numbers of different functions
that need to be included in that need to be done by the specialist
folk. What you need is good co-ordination and through the Cabinet
Office and subsequently through BERR the co-ordination of that
in terms of handling the emergency and then recovery post-emergency
is already the responsibility for co-ordination of these two elements
of an event are already fairly clear. Then there is the proposition
that we have a sort of single floods agency that all our floods
responsibilities are taken off into a separate agency. I think
there are two concerns about that, one is in the urban setting,
like it or not, the water companies, the local authorities, the
Highways Agency and a number of individual owners and developers
will have to be involved so it is never going to be a kind of
single bullet. The other issue is, as this Committee well knows,
the integration of management of water is extremely important
and rivers are not just about floods, they are also about water
resource, water supply, water quality; they are about the biodiversity
of our rivers and the wetlands and indeed the Water Framework
Directive brings together the management of land with the management
of water bodies. Our view is that our integrated role which takes
land, air and water together and particularly takes an integrated
approach to the management of our rivers and river basins, is
a very important one. We have had that role in the UK—not
the Environment Agency but its predecessors—for several
tens of years. Europe as a whole is only coming late to that as
a proposition. Indeed, many countries in Europe are having to
adopt a much more integrated approach than they have had previously.
We believe it would be a backward step for the environment and
for flood risk if the rivers were being managed for flood risk
by one body but managed for all sorts of other purposes by another
body. The third little bit of tittle-tattle that is coming out
of the system at the moment is whether you need somehow to split
off the regulatory role of the Environment Agency and the doing
role of the Environment Agency. Our view is that we are not hugely
a regulator in this although obviously if we had an overview role
in an urban setting we might be conveniently put in the box of
being a regulator, but we do not think that is the role that we
want in the urban setting. The role that we want in the urban
setting is to set a framework to provide advice, to provide tools,
to provide expertise on a national basis that the local authorities
can then take forward.
Q73 David Taylor:
One of my most vivid memories of that day in Gloucestershire is
when we were on the minibus leaving the badly hit town of Tewkesbury.
We were splashing along and we saw the yellow developers sign
to the Riverview Development or something like that. You said
a moment or two ago that you doubted whether or not the £800
million in 2010/11 would be sufficient to meet the pressures placed
on you for flood defences. You explained that a little by saying
in the light of developments that will take place between now
and then. Do you think you have the powers to influence the building
of properties on the floodplains? Are they adequate? Are you trying
them out? Is your eye on the ball on this one?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Perhaps
I could ask David to respond on the issue of development and control,
but you are obviously right. The one that I dine out on is Swan
Pool in Lincoln where there is a whacking great proposal to develop
in the floodplain. There is a bit of a clue in the name, if it
is called Swan Pool and if you are living in a house in the middle
if it you might not want it to be a swan pool. I think there are
real issues about development on the floodplain that still exist
but David will tell you more about that.
Dr King: I think I would say that
we are not where we would like to be in terms of development control
but having said that there has been a significant tightening and
improvement of the legislation under PPS25. Our most recent analysis
is for the period April 2006 to March 2007 which was under the
old PPG 25. If you look at performance there we still had 13 major
cases that went against the Agency's advice. We had five appealed
decisions which were determined contrary to our advice and something
like 63 per cent of our objections were because there were inadequate
flood risk assessments carried out. In December last year we had
a change in the legislation which was to PPS25. That has improved
things in a number of ways. Firstly the Agency is a statutory
consultee. Secondly, if a local authority is now minded to go
against our advice there is the power of direction for us to request
call in first to the government office and then to the secretary
of state. Thirdly, in terms of the actual guidance of steering
development away from high risk areas, it is a lot clearer and
a lot tighter than previously.
Q74 David Taylor:
Collectively you feel you probably do not have the authority necessary
to adequately control.
Dr King: I think the PPS25 is
actually a good piece of legislation. What remains to be tested
is how rigorously it is applied. We are still in the first year
of that so it is difficult to say. I think PPS25 is a big step
forward.
Q75 Mr Cox: Baroness
Young, you said it yourself I think but what has been striking
me as I have been listening to your evidence and those of your
colleagues, is that it seems to me, summing up your evidence,
one conclusion could be that you are an institution that has only
partial responsibility for the overall problem, that is too weak
to influence government agencies and local authorities to take
appropriate pre-emptive action. Almost on every occasion when
a problem is confronted to you by a question you answer that you
either do not have the power or the legislation is not in place
or it is a very complex problem. What we need, do you not agree,
is an agency that has the power to take a real lead in this and
provide genuine leadership which I think was the perception that
people had at the time of these floods, that there was an absence
of some single directing body that could take a lead with the
urgency required to address the problems. Surely what we need
is either a flood defence agency with genuine powers to compel
authorities, even possibly private individuals, to take the action
that is required if we are going to be faced with a serious succession
of these floods, or your own Agency needs to be given the powers
to deal with these problems.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: First
of all if I can take the issue of the many agencies involved,
I think it is a complicated picture and it is distressingly complicated
not only for those of us who have to operate within it but also
for the public in understanding. I am not sure that you can magic
that one away by a single agency because the reality is that it
would have to operate by getting other agencies to do things and
governments are notoriously anxious when faced with the prospect,
for example, of laying costly duties on local authorities for
example but at the dictate of a government agency. I think there
will continue to need to be an agreement between parts of government
about who does what and a tasking down governmental/departmental
lines of individual bits of government machinery.
Q76 Mr Cox: You
do not have the responsibility for so many aspects of the overall
problem, do you?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: If
this had been a winter flood I think you would have seen ample
examples of leadership, if this had been a flood that resulted
in rivers rising and flooding being primarily from the systems
for which we are responsible, ie the rivers or on the coast. We
have revolutionised our approach to flood risk management over
the last ten years and indeed I think it is a sign of confidence
in what we have been trying to do that the Government has given
us substantial additional funding on every occasion when the spending
review came round. There is a very, very confused set of responsibilities
and accountabilities in the surface water urban area and that
is becoming more pressing as a result of climate change so I do
believe that one of the things that must come out of the various
reviews following these sets of floods is a greater clarity about
what government cites, about what the Environment Agency's role
is and about what the role of local authorities and providers
of critical infrastructure are.
Q77 Mr Cox: Planning
is an example, is it not? I hear what you say about the progress
made in PPS25 but as you rightly point out there are still major
developments going ahead in spite of your objections. Some developments
are going ahead, certainly in my own patch in Devon, without significant
Environment Agency involvement despite them being on floodplains
(these may be smaller developments). What can be done in your
view to improve your ability to get local authorities to heed
the need to take these issues seriously when it comes to planning
approvals?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: I
think there are a number of things we have already done. The annual
reports we produce on local authority performance have had an
impact. We are seeing an improvement in the performance of local
authorities and PPS25 will help with that. I think the current
floods will have woken up a few local authorities to the fact
that building on the floodplain against our advice is not good
news. The insurance industry we would like to flex more muscle
but it is quite nervous of that. The insurance industry does point
out that development on a floodplain against our advice will mean
that insurance will only be achievable at very high premium but
that is not to say they are not prepared to insure which would
be the most successful way of persuading local authorities.
Dr King: PPS25 is less than one
year old so I think we need to have the opportunity to test it.
I would just reiterate that it is significantly stronger than
PPG25 in that we are now a statutory consultee, local authorities
have to consult us and we do have the power to request flooding
direction. I think it is significantly stronger and we will see
at the end of this year how things have panned out.
Q78 Lynne Jones:
I would like to come back in here about planning guidance. There
was recently a consultation on permitted development. I want to
go back to the point I was raising earlier about the propensity
for people to concrete over gardens which I think is having a
significant effect. Apparently the consultants recommended that
there should be a requirement for planning permission if more
than 50 per cent of the garden was being concreted or tarmacked
or covered over and yet the Government did not include that in
the consultation paper. Is this something you think ought to be
looked at because it is happening all over the place?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Certainly
we believe there needs to be an assessment of the permitted development
rights of concrete. The figure that David referred to was 22 parks'
worth of concreting of front gardens alone in London as assessed
by the mayor.
Q79 Lynne Jones:
This is not going to be covered by the planning guidance for new
developments and it would be a very simple thing for the Government
to do which might help some of the problems that we have been
talking about.
Dr King: The other point worth
making is that if people are concreting over for parking or whatever
there are other ways of doing this using gravel or membranes or
porous pavements that is as effective but at the same time allows
the water to go through.
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