Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
WEDNESDAY 14 NOVEMBER 2007
MR KEVIN
WHITEMAN, MR
ROBERT SALMON,
MR DAVID
FULLWOOD, DR
JEAN VENABLES
AND MR
DAVID SISSON
Q300 Chairman:
But do you not as a company qualitatively assess the outcome of
these procedures, because they obviously have an impact on your
business?
Mr Whiteman: I am sorry, in terms
of qualitatively assess?
Q301 Chairman:
For example, river basin management plans.
Mr Whiteman: We would be heavily
involved in river basin, yes.
Q302 Chairman:
Are they good quality pieces of work?
Mr Whiteman: Yes, I think they
are.
Q303 Chairman:
So those are worthwhile and they are good quality pieces?
Mr Whiteman: And they have a huge
impact, particularly on our waste water treatment processes.
Q304 Chairman:
What about catchment flood management plans?
Mr Whiteman: They would not have
such a big impact on us because they tend to be about river control
rather than urban drainage.
Q305 Chairman:
But they could have an impact on rivers where you have abstraction
rights?
Mr Whiteman: Yes, but abstraction
from rivers has very little effect on planning.
Q306 Chairman:
What I am trying to get it is: you are a professional in this
field. I want to know whether you think these are good pieces
of work?
Mr Whiteman: I think they are,
yes. I think it is the right way to do it. I think the EA, in
terms of the river basin based planning that they do, it is a
very effective tool and it certainly works for us, and we are
heavily involved in it.
Mr Salmon: I was about to add
to what Kevin said. There is also the Water Framework Directive.
That is a piece of legislation which is meant to bring together
a lot of these plans and studies into more effective basin water
management. Our environmental experts have been contributing fully
to that process around the Water Framework Directive. I think
there are moves to bring a lot of these studies and work together.
It is more of an holistic umbrella piece of work around the Water
Framework Directive.
Q307 Chairman:
You say you think there are moves. We will have to find out what
they are. Dr Venables, did you want to contribute?
Dr Venables: May I ask David Sisson
to comment on—
Q308 Chairman:
You can ask him anything you like, but you are in public!
Mr Sisson: The whole raft of flood
management, river basin management plans can be confusing. We
accept that. It is right and proper that flood management should
be dealt with from effectively the largest unit right down to
the delivery at the sharp end, so to speak: river basin at the
top, catchment flood management. Catchments often fit within flood
river basins or are river basins in themselves in certain circumstances.
They do deal with riverine flooding, they do deal with arterial
drainage flooding that we are involved in—we are wholly
involved in the process—but they also should deal with urban
flooding situations as well, and the ones that I have been involved
with of recent times, that is probably the bit that has been least
well developed in my opinion.
Q309 Chairman:
Coming back to the fact that regional spatial strategies are part
of this hierarchy and that one of the key elements which the government
of the day is understandably addressing—the question of
the supply of housing, and one of the issues in terms of flooding
are two things: (1) where you put them and do you put them in
flood plains and (2) if you are going to have lots more houses
and lots more infrastructure, you are going to have more run-off—is
there some way in which the outcome of work in that type of planning
environment is inputted to these other activities so, in other
words, it joins up? Going back to Mr Salmon's point, he said,
"I hope there is something going on that will bring them
together." From your standpoint, Mr Sisson, are they being
brought together?
Mr Sisson: Certainly, speaking
from my experience of the ones I have been involved with, yes,
urban development and potential urban development , and, quite
honestly, we have already said, we are established in areas of
special need—many of those special areas of need involve
the industry on the Humber bank, for example, they involve quite
large urban areas around East Anglia especially and through the
Trent Valley, and they have to be involved with, and they have
been in the ones that I have been involved with, and they are
used as a tool to govern and to inform the process on spatial
planning.
Q310 Dr Strang:
I wonder if I could the ask Internal Drainage Boards about your
relationship with the Environment Agency, which is obviously the
lead agency in relation to flood protection risk and, indeed,
will have greater powers and responsibilities next April. How
in practice do the Boards work with the Agency in the sense of
how does it exercise its supervisory role over the whole set-up
in relation to flood risk management?
Dr Venables: Representing the
Association of Drainage Authorities, I represent all of the IDBs
nationally when we are talking to the Environment Agency and that
rationalises the relationship between the Environment Agency and
the IDBs. The Environment Agency also relates very, very closely
locally to IDPs on the ground, and there is a very good relationship
there.
Q311 Dr Strang:
Do they actually go to the IDB meetings?
Mr Fullwood: Generally not. Board
meetings, depending on the size of the board, are held bi-monthly
or quarterly, and generally we do not get a representative from
the Environment Agency. Locally, just speaking for the East Riding
for the moment, the water courses in the Beverley Drainage Board
area eventually become the EA main river. So you have got a length
of water course somewhere, at a field boundary, it stops and it
becomes an EA main river. So it is important, the level of maintenance
that the EA do, because that impacts on what the drainage board
can do. So, we have established a fairly close relationship with
the local staff and we talk about what their maintenance works
are, what our maintenance works are and how the two link together.
We are keen to continue that relationship and we are keen to establish,
perhaps at a slightly wider level, liaison between the EA regionally
with the drainage board in that region's area. I think it is bit
hit and miss—in some areas it is good, in some other areas
it is non-existent—but as drainage boards we are very keen
to establish and maintain relationships with the EA because they
need to know what we are doing and we, equally, need to know what
they are doing and what their policies are, what their procedures
are for their future maintenance works because it impacts very
much, or can impact very much, on our operations.
Dr Venables: On the issue of maintenance
you have just mentioned, one area of very great concern that we
have at the moment is that the Environment Agency, in order to
prioritise insufficient money for maintenance, has actually put
their water courses into high, medium and low priority categories
and, unfortunately, a lot of their low priority categories are
also areas where IDBs are active; and that means that, in effect,
there is no maintenance in those areas, and that, as we have just
said, can have a very significant impact on the outfall from IDBs
because some of them pump or gravitate out into main rivers and
that lack of maintenance in some of those areas is going to be
an increasing problem. It is already a problem in some areas and
this is the beginning of the process. In five years' time we could
have a very significant problem if no maintenance is done for
the next five years.
Q312 Dr Strang:
Where is the key maintenance issue? It is done where?
Dr Venables: The Environment Agency
has split its water courses into high, medium and low priority,
and it has allocated according to its priorities that order in
terms of where they are going to spend money on maintenance. One
of the issues that we are trying to address is whether or not
the IDBs can takeover some of those---. We are trying to provide
a solution. We have identified a problem and, in order to offer
a solution, what we are talking to the Environment Agency now
about is whether internal drainage boards can actually takeover
the maintenance of those low priority rivers for the benefit of
the people in the IDB areas and for the benefit of people in the
locality.
Q313 Chairman:
Would you have the resources to make that work?
Dr Venables: We would obviously
have to get funds, but we are actually more effective at spending
funds than the Environment Agency, so there would be a value for
money opportunity there. Again, with some COWCs (critical ordinary
water courses) that were taken over by the Environment Agency,
they were taken over because they were critical for flood risk
management but have received, in some cases, little or no maintenance,
and so there is some concern in those areas that the situation
is getting worse, not better, because of the Environment Agency
taking them over and, again, we would like to propose that we
were able to take them over so they could either be de-mained
or the Environment Agency could subcontract the IDBs to actually
takeover the appropriate maintenance in those areas. I think there
are solutions, but we have just got to be lateral thinking about
finding some of them.
Q314 Dr Strang:
Would the Environment Agency's low priority ones tend to be ones
where the aim was predominantly in relation to agricultural land?
Dr Venables: Not necessarily.
The high priorities tend to be led by urban areas, so it is actually
concentration of people, but in the less populated areas you have
got important infrastructure—you have got pumping stations,
you have got electricity, water, utilities.
Mr Fullwood: And you have got
small villages and small towns, but they are classed as a rural
area, particularly in the medium and low priorities, and that,
we believe, is an issue. Just as an example, we have talked about
the Holderness drain, which is a main water course. It is an EA
main river. The drainage board is not allowed to do any work on
it. That water course feeds down to East Hull pumping station—so
this is where the link comes in. We have a major discharge into
Holderness drain which goes down to East Hull pumping station,
which, under normal circumstances, will gravitate out into the
Humber Estuary. In the June event everything was going down, or
most of it was going out through Yorkshire Water's pumping station.
We believe that there was a restriction on the ability to convey
the water from the upstream end down to Yorkshire Water's pumping
station to such an extent that, where one of our major gravity
inputs into the Holderness drain, there is a pumping station at
the side of it, that pumping station did not run for nearly a
week because the gravity was coming in. It is very complex. There
is a pumping station sat there and there is a big gravity inlet
at the side of it. That gravity inlet was predominant and that
was pushing enough water into Holderness drain to get it down
to East Hull's pumping station where they could manage with it,
but once it got to them, and this was an issue that has been raised.
The level of maintenance on water courses to pass, to give them
the ability to convey water down to pumping stations—we
have got to link those in. There is a drainage board main water
course, there is an EA main river going to a Yorkshire Water pumping
station.
Chairman: A point well made. Lynne.
Q315 Lynne Jones:
To finish off, some questions for Yorkshire Water. I am glad you
mentioned earlier that you are huge energy users, because most
people see they need to conserve water but it is on the basis
of problems with the potential supply of water rather than the
huge carbon footprint. We now have a code for sustainable homes,
which seeks to reduce the consumption of potable water by up to
60 per cent and also reduce the surface water run-off. However,
I understand you get your revenues from the amount of clean water
that you sell. So are there any implications for the widespread
adoption of the code for your revenues: because your other responsibilities
are based on your income from the clean water supply?
Mr Whiteman: The vast majority
of our customers, of course, still are unmetered, so the volume
they use does not relate to the bill that they pay, the bill is
still related to the property. That is changing slowly, but it
is only slowly. If everyone were metered, which I guess in many,
many years to come is the inevitable consequence of the slow but
sure increase in metering, then it would have an impact on us,
but in effect it would start to reflect the real price of water,
because volume unit costs would inevitably go up.
Q316 Lynne Jones:
Do you think you are adequately incentivised to encourage reduction
in water use?
Mr Whiteman: No, it is only just
the whole concept of us being---. We have a statutory duty to
promote water conservation, which we do, but it is only just starting
to be part of the regulatory regime that actually we should have
water conservation targets.
Q317 Lynne Jones:
Are there any conflicts of interest between the water supply functions
and the waste management aspects of your business?
Mr Whiteman: I do not think so,
because the proportion of water that gets into the waste water
treatment system that comes through someone's tap is relatively
small. It is overwhelmed by service water and highway drainage.
I think there is inevitably some conflict about the statutory
duty for water conservation and those of our customers who pay
by meter because we would like them to use more water; so there
is inevitably that conflict, and we have to be honest about that.
Q318 Lynne Jones:
But you generally support these measures?
Mr Whiteman: Yes, absolutely.
Q319 Lynne Jones:
But you still want people to use their hosepipes.
Mr Whiteman: We believe that we
are there to supply water when people want it in the quantities
that they want to use it.
Chairman: Thank you all very much indeed.
That has been extremely useful; a lot of food for thought. Can
I again thank you for the written evidence that you have given
and repeat what I said to our previous witnesses. If there are
any further thoughts or blind flashes of inspiration that you
have on the train going home, we are always grateful for further
advice and observations. Thank you all very much.
| 
