Memorandum submitted by Country Land &
Business Association (DFWMB 11)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The CLA is the leading national organisation
which represents and supports businesses in rural communities,
covering all aspects of land use and management. We represent
the breadth of the rural economy and 36,000 members in England
and Wales who between them own around five million hectares of
rural land. Our members run more than 250 different types of businesses
in rural areas including agriculture, forestry, fisheries, renewable
energy, food, tourism, recreation and other rural businesses.
Availability of fresh water, flood and coastal defences are important
concerns for them, and are, in turn, influenced by their land
management activities.
The CLA is concerned that broad legislative powers
are being created without a clear view of how further provisions
and secondary powers will impact or how they will be paid for.
Neither is it clear what will end up in regulation and what goes
into any Code of Practice.
The CLA acknowledges the aim of the Draft Bill is
to try and create a comprehensive risk based approach for managing
flood risk and coastal erosion through a holistic approach and
we support this principle. Whilst we accept the rationale for
the Environment Agency having a strategic role for all sources
of flooding we are concerned that there will not be appropriate
flexibility at a local level or catchment scale to implement recommendations
along with the appropriate funding. The role played by Internal
Drainage Boards has the potential to deliver huge benefits through
its existing knowledge base but we have doubts that there is sufficient
technical expertise within local Authorities to carry out and
implement the proposed responsibilities within the current funding
framework.
The CLA has general concerns about the broad
powers that could be introduced and how they will be forced upon
and affect the rights of private individuals. The Draft Bill does
not very clearly reflect how the costs will impact on farmers
and land managers or what basis compensation would paid, nor how
third party assets are to be designated.
In particularly more clarification is needed
around the responsibilities of Riparian owners, and how the Land
Drainage Act 1991 and Agricultural Land Tribunal changes will
remedy disputes, specifically in relation to how run off is treated
from private land. The introduction and implementation of run-off
zones using an extension of the Town and Country Planning Act
must not permit undue and unnecessary cost being levied on individuals
for the occurrence of any natural processes. It is not clear how
or when these consultation elements will be introduced to the
Draft Bill.
The proposals within the Draft Bill to register
all reservoirs over 10,000 cubic meters, has the potential for
a huge amount of administrative burden and cost for farmers and
land managers. There seems no logical reason to move away from
the current 25,000 cubic meter threshold especially when there
is clear evidence from the Environment Agency demonstrating that
there have been no significant failures within the last 40 years.
Any proposals that make the undertakers carry out the same requirements
as any major reservoir will be a disproportionate burden. The
CLA strongly recommends that the registration criteria should
not apply to these small low risk reservoirs and ornamental lakes.
The Draft Bill lacks the appropriate balance
between protecting the environment and protecting rural homes
and business. The CLA suggests that a sensible way to address
this is through further development of outcome measures. We propose
that Government policy considers how to protect vital agricultural/rural
land in relation to food and environmental security and develop
an outcome measure to reflect this.
A key development to support flood defence and
flood risk management as well as water resource management, could
be initiated by Government clearly setting out a policy framework
and introducing the legislative changes that would allow environmental
markets to play their part. The CLA is actively pursuing this
approach to support existing funding mechanisms and sees this
Draft Bill as an appropriate mechanism to move this forward.
SPECIFIC CONCERNS
1. It is difficult to judge the impact that this
Draft Bill will have on private owners and land managers at this
current stage as there are several aspects, particularly, secondary
legislation that may or may not be introduced at a later stage.
There is certainly more information required around how the management
of run-off from rural land is legislated for and what cost/benefit
is considered in relation to the value of food and environmental
security. Currently this value is not being considered through
the Governments ecosystem services approach and this is crucial
to ensure that farmers and land managers play a full role in the
delivery of the long term environmental goods and services society
wants.
2. The CLA works to ensure that farmers and land
managers are aware of the impacts of climate change and to this
end we developed the CLA CALM calculator with industry and Government
partners. This free tool helps identify where GHG emissions are
greatest and the management practices to help reduce them. This
also encourages soil and water management that reduces the potential
risks of run-off. The CLA have also encouraged land mangers to
adapt there water resource practices to use water more efficiently
and championed the building of on farm reservoirs. Therefore the
proposals in the Draft Bill to register all small reservoirs above
10,000 cubic meters is likely to be a significant disincentive
to planning and adapting for the future. The Draft Bill proposals
are in danger of being over burdensome and disproportionate to
the risk of overtopping.
3. Defra's future flood plans are being made
on the basis of the worst case scenario where sea levels rise
by over 1 meter which consequently suggests that many of our current
defences will be rendered unsustainable and a policy of retreat
should be adopted in the coming decades. Our view is that until
we can be more certain of the future, we should adopt a precautionary
principle and retain and maintain existing defences until it is
clear that there is no alternative available. Funding for fluvial
defence plans follow a similar priority scoring process. This
approach is not adequately reflected in the flood and coastal
erosion risk management policy proposed within the Draft Bill.
4. Defra's approach is already having major implications
for the defence of our coastline and for fluvial defence. Once
a coastline is lost, it is gone forever. Apart from the devastating
effects for the individuals, families, businesses and communities
immediately affected, such loss may have consequential effects
on land lying behind the coast, and will almost certainly adversely
affect the confidence of other local communities in the will of
Government to meet the challenge of coastal defence. Whilst purporting
to be a sustainable approach, it takes little account of the impact
of lost land on future food and environmental security, the impacts
on saline intrusion into potable/irrigation water sources and
the costs to the local economy.
5. The total spending on flood and coastal risk
management is currently (2007-08) £650 million per year.
This will rise to around £800 million in 2010. This total
is far from adequate and equates to about three days spending
on the NHS Government's own Foresight report (2004) and figures
from the Association of British Insurers suggest spending of at
least £1 billion per annum is required. This current level
of funding will not be sufficient for Defra and the Environment
Agency to meet its commitments as set out in the Bill.
6. The Environment Agency is developing a Long
Term Investment Strategy for flood and coastal risk management
with the Defra and the Treasury. There is a real danger of underestimating
the future spending requirements by just taking current spending
and extrapolating it up for the next 25 years without factoring
climate change effects and importantly the impacts of permanence
in relation to land use change, and the future needs for food
and environmental security. We have asked for these factors to
be fully reflected in the strategy.
7. Given the limited budget, government has to
prioritise where it spends the money. However, the cost-benefit
analysis used for this process generally results in a poor deal
for rural areas and isolated villages.
Defra is continuing to develop "multi-criteria
analysis"—ways of scoring one potential defence scheme
against another taking into account the whole gamut of economic,
social and environmental factors. However, present analysis is
largely based on the number of houses at risk from flooding and
environmental considerations and compares fluvial and coastal
flooding and coastal erosion using the same criteria. It takes
little or no account of future food security, infrastructure (roads,
sewers, water, etc), historic features, business and community
assets.
For more flood defence scheme, that are primarily
in rural locations to be considered by the Environment Agency
under their scoring system—Agricultural land/businesses
must have an Outcome Measure set by Government that reflects the
value of food and environmental security.
Currently the primary indicator for whether
or not a capital works programme gets the go-ahead is the overall
flood risk but the Outcome Measures also consider:
— The value of private property at
risk.
— The wider economic value of infrastructure
at risk.
— One or more environmental measures,
to comply with EU legislation.
— One or more considerations over flood
warning.
None of the Outcome Measures covers the importance
of agricultural land and rural businesses and the value to food
and environmental security.
The CLA recommends that Government reviews its
targets in line with the next three year spending review and strengthens
its policy by protecting vital agricultural land in relation to
food and environmental security by developing a new Outcome Measure
for this.
8. Cost-benefit calculations that determine that
Government should put off the task of securing the coastline until
the last minute are inefficient and short-sighted as is the continued
reduction of maintenance in river catchments. Once our defences
have been neglected over a long period of time they inevitably
become much more costly to repair/replace—reducing the options
available. We strongly believe in the old adage—"a
stitch in time save nine".
9. The CLA does not see hard defences everywhere,
nor do we expect the whole of our coastline or land in flood plains
to be defended to current standards in the long term. But the
alternative to hard defences is not abandonment. There is much
more that could be done in the way of soft defences, including
beach re-charging and other techniques, to stabilise the coastline
in certain places (other countries do it) and a planned and managed
approach to re-alignment and creation of wash lands is favoured.
We have been trying to encourage Defra to look seriously at innovative
new technology for flood defence from around the world.
Where it is not technically feasible to defend
and maintain defences, there should be compensation for those
whose land, businesses or homes need to be lost for the greater
public benefit (as would happen if a new road scheme needed land).
CLA believes that there are opportunities for
imaginative approaches on fluvial flooding, for example in the
creation of wash lands, in agreement with landowners, that could
alleviate the risk of expensive flood damage in some areas. Along
with the development of environmental markets that could offer
another income stream to deliver flood alleviation as well as
the integration of other environmental goods and services.
The CLA is currently exploring opportunities
for developing environmental markets through a seminar in the
City of London on 12 May 2009. Some of these thought were outlined,
together with members' views of the causes and effects of the
floods, in our response to government's review of the 2007 floods
and commented on the recommendations of the enquiry lead by Sir
Michael Pitt.
The CLA strongly supports the right for landowners
to protect themselves where government has withdrawn from providing
flood defences. The Bill gives no confidence here for ensuring
the balance between protecting your property/business and protecting
the environment would be appropriately assessed. We are currently
negotiating a protocol with the Environment Agency and Natural
England to allow landowners to take over the maintenance of sea
defences should they wish to do so. However, this document has
still not been signed off by Environment Agency Directors (April
2009)
May 2009
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