Memorandum submitted by the National Trust
(DFWMB 08)
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
1.1 The National Trust welcomes the opportunity
to contribute to this inquiry. We believe the draft Flood and
Water Management Bill provides an important opportunity to deliver
the step-change needed in the way in which we regulate, fund and
implement water management in the UK. There is a need to bring
forward modern legislation to reflect new approaches to flood
and water management and to address the urgent need to mitigate
and adapt to climate change.
1.2 We support much of what is contained within
the draft Bill. In particular, we welcome the shift of emphasis
from flood defence to flood risk management. The term flood defence
is outdated and does not reflect current policy or practice. It
is time that the underlying legal framework was amended to reflect
this.
1.3 The Bill should be used to create a new framework
for a sustainable, catchment focused approach to flood risk management.
This should place greater emphasis on working with natural processes
in statute, promoting action to protect, restore and emulate the
natural regulating function of catchments, rivers, floodplains
and coasts.
1.4 While the majority of the proposals
within the draft Bill are positive, there are concerns, including
wide use of "enabling" powers and lack of detail on
costs and funding. We are also concerned that there is much which
is missing from the draft Bill. Recommendations from the Walker
Review on charging and metering for households, the Cave Review
of competition and innovation, and the consultation on time-limiting
abstraction licenses will be brought into the Bill later. This
is regrettable because they will miss the important pre-legislative
scrutiny process.
1.5 We are also disappointed that the draft
Bill does not include a Water Efficiency Commitment, placing an
obligation upon water companies to incentivise water saving and
introducing a water service rather than a water supply culture.
2. THE NATIONAL
TRUST AND
WATER
2.1 The National Trust is the UK's largest
non-governmental landowner and farming organisation with 2,000
farm tenancies covering more than 250,000ha of land, including
whole catchments, hundreds of headwaters, private water supplies
and sewerage systems, salmonid rivers and major lakes. We are
also Europe's largest conservation charity. We own more than 1,100km
of coastline in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, manage more
than 10% of SSSIs in the UK, and our countryside and open space
properties receive over 100 million visits every year.
2.2 The Trust's experience of flood and water
management is based on the following:
— the Trust's core statutory purpose
of conserving and promoting access to the nation's natural and
cultural heritage in perpetuity—we are a steward of special
and fragile places for ever, with decisions taken for long term
public benefit;
— the Trust is a major business, from
tourism to catering, with an annual turnover of £295 million—we
have significant economic assets actually or potentially at risk
from flooding, but also benefits to be derived from a more integrated
approach to land and water management;
— the Trust is a developer, with a
number of housing developments either completed or underway on
Trust land, alongside the continual development of visitor facilities
and other amenities;
— the Trust is a major voice in public
debate at national, regional and local levels, indirectly through
the media and directly through interpretation and events at our
sites—through our communication we have the potential to
reach millions of people and promote greater understanding of
the risks we all face; and
— the Trust is an authority on land
and resource management and use—we have decades of expertise
in understanding and managing risks and undertaking our conservation
work through the "careful management of change".
2.3 In 2005 we carried out a Water Resources
Risk Assessment (WRRA) to help operational managers understand
the significance of the water resources on their sites and to
enable them to take account of a wide range of risks and opportunities
in their long term planning. The assessment revealed that 43%
of the land area of England and Wales drains through National
Trust land, emphasising the crucial importance of working to protect
water catchments upstream of our sites as well as managing our
impacts downstream.
3. FLOOD AND
COASTAL EROSION
RISK MANAGEMENT
3.1 Every parcel of land can play a part
in absorbing and storing water, slowing the speed at which it
moves downstream and reducing the flood risk. A recent evidence-based
review commissioned by the National Trust concluded that, for
small river catchments (typical of 97% of England and Wales),
land management has a significant impact upon run-off and can
be used as part of an integrated approach to flood risk management.
3.2 The National Trust strongly supported the
Government's stated intent to make space for water by managing
flood risk strategically, within the context of the catchment
or shoreline as a whole, and sustainably, through respecting natural
processes (Making Space for Water, Defra 2004). This is
the philosophy and approach the Trust is increasingly employing
in the management of our own land, buildings and coast.
3.3 Unfortunately, a huge gap currently
remains between the stated aims and objectives of the Making Space
for Water strategy and delivery on the ground. The "portfolio
of responses" discussed in the strategy remains an aspiration,
leaving public investment locked into provision of hard defences
even if more cost-effective alternatives exist.
3.4 We are therefore highly supportive of
the draft Bill provision which will put in place a new approach
to flood and coastal erosion risk management, based upon greater
working with natural processes. This will help deliver Water Framework
Directive objectives relating to natural river morphology, as
well as delivering a wide range of additional benefits for wildlife,
landscape, cultural heritage and public access.
3.5 However, Government needs to ensure
that bodies which undertake these activities have the powers they
need to undertake the portfolio of measures required to deliver
this new approach, including risk maps, awareness campaigns, flood
warnings, emergency planning and response management, community
defences, resilience measures, installation of sustainable drainage
systems (SUDs), changes to land management and support to individuals
or communities to adapt to change. There is no presumption that
the full range of options listed (including working with natural
processes) must be considered so there is no guarantee operating
authorities will act. We want to see how the package of legislation,
guidance and appraisal ensures this leads to delivery.
3.6 Our experience also demonstrates that
there is a need to develop the skills and competencies of those
developing and implementing approaches to flood management on
the ground to ensure more effective delivery of strategic objectives
and exploration of alternatives.
Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems
3.7 We also strongly support the clauses
(217-233) on Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) which will
require developers to include sustainable drainage in new developments,
and the proposed amendment to Section 106 of the Water Industry
Act (1991) to make the right to connect surface run-off to public
sewers conditional on meeting standards which both reduce flood
risk and improve water quality.
3.8 Removal of this automatic right of connection
to sewers would provide a strong message to planners and developers
that the ability of infrastructure and environment to cope with
new drainage demand cannot be taken for granted. This would provide
further incentive to consider sustainable drainage management
early in the design process. Uncertainty over responsibility for
ownership and maintenance of SUDS has been the biggest single
issue that has limited their use in England and Wales. It is vital
that Government takes the opportunity provided by this Bill to
rectify this uncertainty by placing responsibility on Local Authorities.
Consideration will also have to be given as to how Local Authorities
will raise revenue associated with adoption and ongoing maintenance
of these systems. Comprehensive and extensive staff training is
also required so that regulatory staff have the technical knowledge
to assess proposed SUDS designs.
Reservoir Safety
3.9 We welcome proposals for the Bill to
introduce a more risk-based approach to reservoir safety which
better reflects the danger that reservoir failures may pose to
human health. In classifying risk, it is important that a proportionate
approach is adopted which prioritises high risk reservoirs rather
than applying a blanket approach leading to over-engineering of
lower risk water bodies. It is also important that the risk assessment
not only considers the water body itself, but also the characteristics
of the catchment upstream in order to give a more accurate assessment
of risk.
Internal Drainage Boards
3.10 The draft Bill consults on views on how
Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs) might be reformed but does not
present a preferred option. This is a welcome opening of the debate
but we feel the Bill should go further, turning IDBs into Water
Level Management Boards with a focus on public and environmental
benefit from public investment.
3.11 IDBs are statutory bodies with a history
rooted in single-minded pursuit of agricultural land drainage.
Even today, after numerous attempts at reform, their environmental
performance remains poor. Re-constituting IDBs as Water Level
Management Boards in both name and practice would be a key step
in reforming these statutory bodies.
Public awareness
3.12 We welcome the proposed new powers
for county and unitary authorities to provide public awareness
campaigns and to provide support to individuals and communities
in dealing with local flood risk management. However, we believe
these powers alone will not be sufficient. We believe there should
be a duty upon all competent authorities to proactively communicate
flood risk to the public, not only to raise general awareness,
but to facilitate practical adaptation through promoting actions
that people can take in everyday life.
4. WATER
4.1 Government are currently considering
a ban on domestic laundry cleaning products which contain phosphorous.
Such a ban would be taken forward through regulation under Section
2(2) of European Communities Act 1972, rather than the Flood and
Water Management Bill. We wish to highlight our support for such
a ban, which we believe should cover all detergents, soaps and
shampoos.
Hosepipe bans (clause 254)
4.2 20% of National Trust sites are currently
in net rainfall deficit areas; this is predicted to rise to 34%
by 2050. These areas will increasingly experience droughts and
be at high risk of water shortages. Shortage of water has serious
impacts for the special places of historic interest and natural
beauty in our care. Fish, wetland birds and other wildlife that
need ponds, rivers and streams struggle to survive when these
dry up or run low.
4.3 We therefore welcome proposals to provide
an enabling power to allow the Secretary of State to extend water
company hosepipe ban powers to other discretionary uses of water
in order to conserve water during a drought. This will help maintain
essential supply whilst reducing the impact on environment by
reducing the need for further abstraction.
4.4 We are disappointed that the outcomes
of the consultation on time-limiting abstraction licenses will
be brought into the Bill later. This is regrettable because they
will miss the important pre-legislative scrutiny process.
Water efficiency
4.5 We are disappointed that the draft Bill
does not include a Water Efficiency Commitment, placing an obligation
upon water companies to incentivise water saving and introducing
a water service rather than a water supply culture.
4.6 Whilst we welcome the water efficiency targets
for the water industry introduced by OFWAT, we would like to see
them tightened as the evidence base for water efficiency grows,
and as climate change bites harder. We believe targets should
be enshrined in statute, as with leakage targets which have driven
performance to a large extent. We also believe other measures
are needed to reform the water industry, such as a change in UK
accounting rules to remove the incentive for companies to build
supply-side measures (which can be treated as Capex, capital expenditure)
over large-scale demand-side measures (which must be treated as
Opex, operational expenditure). This would help the nation to
achieve water use which is sustainable in the long-term.
4.7 We further believe the Bill should be
used to introduce a duty on OFWAT to promote sustainable climate
change mitigation and adaptation. OFWAT have indicated that they
may not be able to award funding for climate-change based measures
prior to the release of the UKCIP 09 results later this year.
As a result water companies have not submitted climate change
measures in their PR09 business plans. We believe a specific duty
would help solve this as it would give Ofwat the formal role in
planning for climate change, enabling demand management schemes
to be treated equally with supply-side measures.
4.8 Water efficiency measures are essential
in mitigating and adapting to climate change and in ensuring the
UK meets its legally binding 80% greenhouse gas emissions reduction
target. The duty as proposed would help ensure that Ofwat work
more closely with Ofgem and others to help frame the regulatory
structure to enable and deliver joint energy and water retrofitting
schemes, including to tie in with the government's plans to retrofit
every home for water efficiency by 2030.
4.9 We are disappointed that recommendations
from the Walker Review on charging and metering for households
and the Cave Review of competition and innovation will be brought
into the Bill later. This is regrettable because they will miss
the important pre-legislative scrutiny process.
May 2009
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