Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620
- 639)
WEDNESDAY 9 JANUARY 2008
MR DAN
HAWTHORN, MR
KEVIN REID
AND MR
RYND SMITH
Q620 Miss McIntosh:
That is a separate question to what the Chairman asked. I want
to get on record your views about the right of connection because
at the moment, and I know this is a different part of the country,
I was just wondering if it is the same in London or across the
country and whether you agree with what Pitt said.
Mr Smith: In terms of the right
of connection issue, in broad principle the Institute does agree
with Pitt. Again, I think we would have a concern to ensure that
the technique or the mechanism used would not generate a raft
of minor discretionary planning applications to local councils
and that there ought to be better, smarter regulatory mechanisms
than that. It is fair to say that across the nation it would be
useful to focus the minds of people on the fact that they should
be using sustainable urban drainage techniques to reduce the volume
of drainage from land going directly into public drains and/or
sewers in ways that might compromise the wastewater treatment
system.
Q621 David Taylor:
I have read your concise submission on sustainable urban drainage
schemes very carefully.[7]
Right at the very end you talk about local planning authorities
needing clarification of support for SUDS, Mr Smith. Briefly,
what do you mean by that?
Mr Smith: We mean that there is
the potential and scope for very widespread use of SUDS, particularly
in new and residential development. If we are looking, for example,
at growth corridor type housing development, it would be superb
to see the widespread roll-out of reasonably well-proved, cost-effective
SUDS techniques and mechanisms.
Q622 David Taylor:
What do you mean by "support" for them?
Mr Smith: We mean a combination
of policy support that then comes down to the local level so that
within local development frameworks as well it is clear that councils
are calling for SUDS as an integrated part of the design submission
on housing schemes.
Q623 David Taylor:
Planning authorities should be able to require it? Can you not
do that at the moment?
Mr Smith: Not in my view, no.
Mr Reid: It is probably worth
adding that PPS25 takes us forward in terms of the use of sustainable
drainage techniques. On the back of that, what we have done with
the further alterations to the London Plan—and you have
a sneak preview of that in our evidence but it will be published
next month—is introduce a policy that sets out a sustainable
drainage hierarchy for London. Again, it recognises that we see
this as a particular problem. It is on the first page of the appendix
in our evidence.[8]
It takes you through seven different steps going from more to
less sustainable.
Q624 David Taylor:
We have had extensive evidence and support from people urging
the widespread use of SUDS, as you might expect. Indeed, when
we went to Lyon, the Committee saw some evidence of what happens
in other countries in that regard. Are you saying that the two
key barriers to the roll-out, to use your phrase, of SUDS on a
grander scale are: one, the powers for local authorities to be
able to require that to happen from developers; and, secondly,
some financial support?
Mr Smith: Some financial support
would, I think, be extremely valuable. We have to recognise that
these are techniques or technologies in transition. We are learning
and improving as we go and every effort should be put into accelerating
the learning curve. It is critically important that the best practice
policy development that seems to be going on, for example in London,
is encouraged to happen not just in London.
Q625 David Taylor:
For a major development of an internal highway infrastructure,
the local authority needs, are you saying, central finance from
Government to pay for its share of some of that infrastructure
as well as the developers themselves?
Mr Smith: It is certainly a consideration.
I would also highlight as a possible research priority, and this
is down at the smaller scale too, that if we are looking, for
example, at sorts of techniques—getting back to the impermeable
surface dilemma that Pitt has very rightly, in our view, identified—then
something as simple as a research digest published with the government
elephant stamp that says that these are broadly cost-effective
mechanisms in the British climatic, geological and hydrological
context, that these are things you can use that will return your
lot—
David Taylor: You have a point, Mr Smith,
about better understanding of urban drainage, pressures which
may relate to this.
Q626 Chairman:
Let me ask one question. Looking at the Policy 4A in the appendix,
the flavour there is about prospective development and how you
should deal with water. One aspect that slightly worries me is
that we have learnt that SUDS stands for Sustainable Urban Drainage
Systems and you think that we must have lots of those, but it
is very difficult to retro that.
Mr Hawthorn: By and large, the
planning system is not a mechanism by which you can do that. We
need to look at other ways to bring that about.
Q627 Chairman:
Being realistic, SUDS does not mean a retrospective policy of
tearing up hard-standing; it is a question of looking at it prospectively?
Mr Reid: That is right.
The Committee suspended from 5.15 pm to 5.25 pm
for a division in the House
Q628 David Lepper:
The issue we have not really touched on yet is who, particularly
in the view of the GLA, should be responsible for operating and
maintaining SUDS where they are put in place? We have had difficulties
expressed to us. Yorkshire Water suggested that it should be local
authorities that are responsible. Thames Water has suggested the
Scottish approach of everything above land being for the local
authority and everything below the water company's responsibility.
Pitt helpfully or unhelpfully says that it should be sorted out
and decided. Do you have a view?
Mr Reid: It is fair to say that
we do not have a strong view. It is not something where we are
involved in the implementation. I would point out a couple of
matters. There are numerous sustainable drainage systems which
have been built as part particularly of large development proposals
over the last four or five years. Most of those, as I understand
them, are managed by a managing agent for that particular development
and in a similar way they will paint the fences or repair the
lifts. The second point would be, as someone said earlier, that
flooding risks are all interrelated. These surface waters will
eventually become river water, et cetera. The Environment Agency
looks after fluvial and tidal flooding; Thames Water looks after
the sewers and sewer capacity. I think that the Committee itself
ought to consider how helpful it is to have another form of agency
that is looking after a different type of potential flooding.
We are putting together this Drain London project, which is trying
to get these groups together. There is a certain logic in saying
that the fewer groups responsible for too much water in the wrong
place, the more likely it is to be a joined-up mechanism. You
do not want one set of people getting rid of all their water as
quickly as they can and passing the problem on to whoever is going
to receive that.
Mr Smith: I wholeheartedly endorse
that. May I add briefly that it is critically important that if
SUDS are ever going to be anything more than a relatively minor
or marginal endeavour, then we have got to have a clear, consistent
institutional means of dealing with their ongoing ownership. With
management that is not in effect a residual body corporate or
freeholder type approach or developer, then there is the concern
about who they hand that liability on to. The Royal Town Planning
Institute has no strong view at all about who that should be but
really makes a plea for some systematic thought about the governance
of SUDS and an attempt to make the simplest arrangement possible
that is consistent.
Q629 David Lepper:
Mr Smith, am I right that you are saying that in the long run
the number of separate managing agents that you have described
as responsible at the moment, because schemes are related to particular
developments, is not as satisfactory?
Mr Smith: I do not believe it
is a satisfactory solution. I would suggest that SUDS in the medium
to long term has to be considered as part of a broader portfolio
of infrastructure assets for drainage per se. If we have
a vast plethora of private agency type operating arrangements
without at least a clear strategic overview about how they talk
to one another about who subsequently repairs, maintains, monitors,
manages and connects to it and the like, then we are likely to
be making a problem for ourselves in the future rather than finding
a valuable and useful solution.
Q630 Chairman:
Has anybody done any technological work on, for example, permeable
road services or payments and the type of thing that could be
applicable in London? We talked about SUDS in one sense as areas
and you have the current hard-standing features but are you doing
any work on future SUDS—the SUDS-ing of London?
Mr Reid: We are not at the minute.
I think there are some reports by the Construction Industry Research
Institute (CIRIA). I am sorry to keep going back to this: it is
certainly part of what the Drain London group will be looking
at. I say this with a little caution because we have only had
one meeting of this group. Certainly, to address some of those
historic issues, the fact that we already have a vast drainage
infrastructure may well require some research in terms of how
we could manage the existing drainage more sustainably.
Mr Hawthorn: I think I am right
in saying that the solution to permeable hard-standing is not
something for the future as that already exists. It is not crystal
ball gazing to think that that might happen in London. There are
already options now which developers and local authorities have
to install those options. The fact that we are and should be worried
about people paving over their front gardens to put their car
there does not mean that they should not do it; it just means
that they should do it in a way which is sustainably drainable
and a permeable hard-standing surface might be one way of doing
that. That can be done now.
Q631 Chairman:
Before we come to our final area of questioning, I want to jog
back. You have talked about the work you are doing in London to
look at the flood risk in London and co-ordinate the authorities
on this matter. In your evidence you have a table of infrastructure
which we have looked at. You have tried to locate that in flood
zones in paragraph 7.[9]
What rather surprised me about this was that there as no mention
of power or water infrastructure. Why was that?
Mr Reid: We did go into some of
that detail in the Regional Flood Risk Appraisal to which we have
made reference. It was published in June of last year. That does
look at some of the power and water infrastructure. I can tell
you that there is certainly a lot of different power infrastructure
throughout London. Some of that is within flood risk areas. As
I am sure you would expect, a lot of the water infrastructure
is located beside rivers because that is a sensible place to manage
water.
Q632 Chairman:
Is part of the future flood-proofing for London going to be devising
a strategy, particularly in the light of what happened in Gloucestershire,
to try to minimise the risk to the infrastructure of flooding?
Mr Reid: Yes.
Q633 Mr Drew:
I am sorry I missed the restart after the vote. The point I was
going to make is this. The key thing we learnt from our visit
to Lyon was the co-operation between the city authority and the
myriad of local authorities around and their ability to use space.
I would be interested in that in terms of London because it is
a pretty congested, urban centre. To what extent do you feel that
you are dependent upon the wider authorities around and how might
you be able to use some of the space they have and you do not
have to solve your problems in terms of the density and the problems
that come in on the back of that regarding flooding?
Mr Hawthorn: As a final word on
the water and energy infrastructure, first, I understand that
there are difficulties to do with national security which mean
that that information is not as easily and readily available as
is the case with some of the other infrastructure, which is why
we do not have as much data on it.
Q634 Chairman:
National security?
Mr Hawthorn: There are security
vulnerabilities with energy and water infrastructure which mean
that information about the nature of the risks involved in them
is not as easily available as it might be.
Q635 Chairman:
I can understand in the capital city why people might want to
be circumspect about where certain things are if those certain
things are located within potential high flood risk areas. It
was very interesting that the Committee was told that if the second
electricity sub-station in Gloucestershire had gone, half a million
people could have been without electricity. Hang on a minute,
one big London borough could be the equivalent of that. It would
be very interesting to know spatially in London how many boroughs
were vulnerable in terms of their electricity/water/gas or any
other distribution system. I only wanted to have the reassurance
that these were matters that, in the overarching work you are
doing, are being looked at as far as London is concerned.
Mr Hawthorn: We are working as
much as we can with the London Resilience Group, as it is called,
to map the critical infrastructure as well as we can. I am merely
reporting to you the difficulties.
Q636 Chairman:
Are you having difficulty in getting hold of information to enable
you to do to that work for the capital city?
Mr Hawthorn: I would not say that
it is a major problem but some people are more circumspect about
some of the kinds of infrastructure than they are about other
matters, which explains why we are not able to give as much detail
as we would like on things like schools and hospitals.
Mr Smith: May I make a brief observation
on that which takes this to the issue of nationally significant
infrastructures and indeed the passage of the Planning Bill which
is at its committee stage in this place. The Royal Town Planning
Institute had quite a long and interesting internal discussion
about the degree to which we should suggest as an amendment to
that Bill the proposition that major issues of flood contingency
around nationally significant infrastructures should directly
be a consideration for the preparation of national policy statements
for infrastructures, and indeed for the decision making by the
proposed Infrastructure Planning Commission. The Bill as it is
currently before the House does not set out either of those requirements.
However, clause 11 does allow the Secretary of State potentially
the power to add other things to the list, so to speak. On balance,
we have taken the view that we have not specifically called for
an amendment on that point. In relation to the transactions of
this Committee and the need for careful and rigorous examination
of the effects of one regime of policy control translating on
to the actions of others, we need to be very clear that policy
makers and decision makers around the nationally significant infrastructures
that that legislature will regulate must, as a matter of utmost
priority, consider the potential effects of flooding upon that
infrastructure and the degree to which that infrastructure will
also have consequences for the behaviour of flood waters.
Q637 Dr Strang:
Turning to development control, which clearly has an important
part to play in managing a flood risk through any development
in high risk areas or where development goes ahead and ensuring
that it takes place in a way which mitigates the flood risk, the
Government has progressively been strengthening its advice to
local authorities which culminated in Planning Policy Statement
25. Mr Reid has made a couple of references to that statement.
Do you see PPS25 as striking the right balance between flood risk
and development and are the processes there being properly used?
Mr Hawthorn: The answer to that
question is: yes, it is a massive step in the right direction.
It is much better than what was in place before. There are two
parts to any planning policy. There is the preparation of it and
the implementation of it. There is a question about whether all
local authority planning departments when they are dealing with
even the very smallest of planning applications which might have
an effect on flood risk issues have the resources and the expertise
fully to implement the very important principles that are set
out in PPS25. While I do not want to be critical of it, there
are some questions which the Committee might want to look into
about the extent to which the local authorities, often through
no fault of their own as it were, are equipped to implement it
to its full extent.
Q638 Dr Strang:
Do you reckon the statement itself has it right?
Mr Reid: Certainly, from what
we have seen over the last 18 months or so, in the planning applications
that are referred to the Mayor and his ability to determine them,
there is an improvement in terms of the attention that is paid
to flood risk and the quality of the flood risk assessments that
accompany some of those development proposals. What I cannot answer
is whether that is mirrored, as Dan has indicated, in the smaller
scale developments that do not come to the Mayor, of which there
are many thousands in London.
Mr Hawthorn: It is early days
to judge, as it were, how effectively it is doing its job. These
are our initial impressions.
Mr Smith: I would broadly endorse
those conclusions. The sequential test and the exception test
outlined in PPS25 seem to be pretty much on target. Anything more
stringent, and people occasionally talk about the banning—
Q639 Chairman:
Could I ask both you and Mr Hawthorn particularly to develop Mr
Hawthorn's observations about the skills that local authorities
need to be able to get the best use out of PPS25? Mr Hawthorn,
you seemed to be suggesting to us that you felt a concern that
some local authorities did not have enough in-house expertise
fully to understand, appreciate and implement this. Am I correct
in understanding that from what you said?
Mr Hawthorn: It is hard, from
where we sit in the planning system, to know as much as we would
like about the way in which planning policies are implemented
at the level below the big strategic applications that are automatically
referable to the Mayor. I do not want to claim any great volume
of evidence behind this, but it is broadly the case that the resources
that local authorities have to dedicate to smaller planning applications
are shrinking and that the major new pieces of policy which they
have to incorporate into their assessment of applications—and
that applies to things like PPS25 as well as our own London Plan—present
new challenges for an ever more challenged and constrained service.
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