Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-61)
MS MARY
DHONAU AND
MR LAURENCE
WATERHOUSE
1 JUNE 2009
Q40 Mr Drew: I have got the same
problems. I had at least two flood meetings last week. To what
extent is there a worry still that people are not prepared. There
is the rationale that the authorities have not known how to do
this and they have to work together, but I am a bit worried that
people themselves have not been that willing to take preventive
measures. Some have been flooded twenty-odd times. That is giving
a message, is it not? I am not saying it is all their fault, but
somebody somewhere needs to say, "You've got a real problem
here that you're going to have to take some measures yourself
to deal with." I know that is one of the roles of the forum.
Do you think with more resources you could do much more on the
ground to persuade people that forearmed is forewarned?
Mr Waterhouse: I believe so. The
National Flood Forum is a charity and I am the Chairman of the
charity so I am in an honorary position, but in real life I am
a flood consultant and I can tell you that the further away we
are from a flooding event, a major flooding event, the less frequency
of flood meetings, the less things happen like that. I believe
there is still much to do to make people aware. I think the problem
is that we concentrate a great deal on flood warnings from the
Environment Agency for river flooding, whereas much of the flooding,
two-thirds of the flooding, is from flash flooding. That is very
difficult to predict and very difficult to make people aware of
because the same street can flood in different ways on different
occasions, depending on the crop layout, the developments which
have taken place. So there is so much more to do. I have just
spent 18 days in Romania for the European Union advising on a
flood awareness campaign over there.
Q41 Chairman: I bet that was fun!
Mr Waterhouse: It was interesting,
yes, but I have to say they are—well, they would be now,
but they are slightly better now because they even have national
campaigns on television there on flood events, cartoons in the
schools, flood games, et cetera. But it is difficult for people
because yesterday was the second anniversary of our house being
flooded. We were sat in the garden in glorious sunshine wondering
whether the plants were going to dry up, whereas two years ago
we were paddling around. That is a distant memory now, apart from
those who are still having their houses rebuilt, like me. But
it is a distant memory and until you can get that sense of urgency
into how we do this, how we communicate, and more importantly
I think people think flooding happens, it comes and goes for a
couple of days and that's it. It is not! We are still living with
the consequences of it, and I think that is the message you have
to get across, the awareness, the consequences and how you live
with it because we are blighted now. I cannot sell my house now.
We live somewhere that has flooded. We are blighted. So how do
we communicate that? How do we defend ourselves? That is the message
you have to get across to people.
Q42 Chairman: Let me just ask you
this question. You have been very positive and very enthusiastic
about the way you feel Defra has listened and you have talked
positively about the Environment Agency, but one of the things
that concerns me is that, for example, in the bill there are some
clauses which change the current nature of the regional flood
defence committee set-up. You made a very interesting point earlier
when you said that local knowledge is absolutely vital and those
committees are usually the repository of local knowledge, of people
who are enthusiastic because they understand the soil, the water,
the area and they can bring that to bear, but under the new arrangements
of these coastal, whatever they call them now, the RFC—I
have not learned all the nomenclature yet for this—these
bodies, whilst drawing together coastal and surface water flooding,
are going to be an advisory group. Are you really sure that the
new infrastructure is going to be able to capture, if you like,
the knowledge locally and see that translated into actions which
pick up on the problems you have articulated so far, because you
have got the coordination of the Environment Agency sitting up
there in the bill and it is supposed to work with local authorities
and then cascade down. You are replacing one quite complicated,
convoluted mechanism with another mechanism. Are you clear that
it is going to work?
Ms Dhonau: I am not happy, actually,
about what is happening with the Regional Flood Defence Committees
and I do not want them to be diluted, if you will pardon the pun,
in any way. I still believe in fact, and I would put forward a
plea for more money to be put into local levy funding so that
the many, many smaller communities which would never qualify for
Government funding could benefit, because we have got to think
of places like the village of Bucklebury where 98% of the houses,
churches, the village school and community hall were taken out,
but it would be a far lesser amount of money for them to actually
protect that village and keep the community and rural life going
because often rural communities are sorely overlooked when it
comes to flood defence budget spending.
Mr Waterhouse: There is the assumption
now that unless it is main river flooding you are not flooded
and getting that message across, the flash flooding, the surface
water flooding to these committees is really very difficult. If
it is not on the plan, it did not happen, I am afraid.
Q43 Chairman: My colleague Lynne
Jones a little later on is going to take up the question of riparian
ownership and some of the difficulties there, but I think this
neatly follows on from the line of questioning I have just been
pursuing in terms of the bill, just one area which you have touched
on in a way. We have talked very much about the organisational
changes to try and prevent and help them deal with flooding. Does
the bill need strengthening or adding to in any way in terms of
post-recovery? You mentioned, Ms Dhonau, the question of grants
and I just wondered if you meant that just as it is difficult
for some people to afford to protect their property, it is equally
difficult for people to fully recover from the effects of flooding?
Ms Dhonau: It is very difficult
to fully recover from the effects of flooding. Actually, I would
like to back-step because you asked the question of whether people
are aware of the risk they face and if they have been flooded
once, maybe twice, possibly three times, yes, four times—I
think Norwich Union did a study and it is four times you have
to be flooded before you actually accept the fact that you have
been flooded and that you are at risk again. But then you have
got to think about the way the return periods are described. One
old lady said to me, "Well, darling, I'm 85. I'm not going
to be flooded again. It was a one in a hundred year flood and
I'm not going to see another one." Actually getting that
information out to the communities is very, very difficult. When
I am talking to communities I get out a couple of dice and chuck
them and say, "Let's have a go around the room to see how
quickly we can get two sixes," and it might be that the person
next to me gets two sixes straight away, but then we go around
the table three times and that is the only way that I can think
of describing it, or perhaps a bet on the Grand National or something
like that. Actually getting the return period and the perceived
risk over to the communities is a very, very difficult thing and
that is what I think needs addressing and starting with.
Q44 Chairman: I think you have just
got yourself a national job there dealing with how you get across
the concept of risk. It is very impressive. Just before I move
on to Lynne's questions, the Environment Agency, as I understand
it, have only got one person on their board who actually has a
responsibility to deal with flooding issues. Do you think that
the bill should say something about the structure of the Environment
Agency's board to take into account these matters?
Ms Dhonau: I certainly do, yes.
I would very much like to see far greater representation on the
Environment Agency board for flood related matters, but also I
would like to see that perhaps one member of the National Flood
Forum was invited onto the board, because I think we often add
a touch of reality. I am very glad that Hilary Benn invites me
to his flood summits because I often feel that when people who
are not a recipient of the flood water can actually plan for us,
it is much better to plan with us.
Chairman: Well, I am sure that the representative
of the Environment Agency—they always come to meetings like
this—will have noted what you have had to say. You never
know, you might be in for an invitation!
Q45 Lynne Jones: I have got in with
my organisation greatly. I have an area in my constituency which
was flooded last year. Some had been flooded before but the worst
area had not had a flood since, they said, 1937, so these things
can happen at any time. We know that there is a huge programme
of flood defences but there is also huge demand and I very much
liked the comments you made about resilience being the way to
go about things in terms of prioritising work. Are you satisfied
that that is the approach which is being taken?
Ms Dhonau: What do you mean by
that, in the Flood and Water Bill?
Q46 Lynne Jones: We were talking
about flood defences and you are saying it is actually about building
in resilience rather than having greater protection. Are you happy
with the way that work is prioritised and that it is on the basis
of resilience?
Ms Dhonau: I think more research
needs to be done into resilience. There is very little known.
Defra obviously has had the pilot schemes but they have all picked
up on protection. Everybody wants to keep water out of their home
and in fact the Environment Agency have now got a sort of add-on
to their website with case studies, I have to say provided by
the National Flood Forum. I am very sad! Whenever I meet anybody
and they have put in flood resilience, I am there with my phone
or my camera taking pictures, because a lot of people are taking
steps to help themselves with resilience as well as protection,
but there is very, very little information, evidence out there.
The Environment Agency has not moved forward with that at the
moment, but again unless people know that that is an alternative
and it is the sound alternative, then I do not think people will
move forward with that.
Q47 Lynne Jones: In my area people
are still talking about having places to store sandbags nearby
rather than actually blocking in the bricks and those kinds of
things. The other issue, though, is that with climate change we
may have to accept that the sort of flood defence approach has
got to go and that there are going to be some areas where we are
actually going to let defences go or just accept that coastal
erosion is going to take place. How do you think such decisions
should be made and are you satisfied with the approach that is
being taken?
Ms Dhonau: First and foremost,
it has got to be done by building relationships with the Environment
Agency, building relationships with the community, building trust,
going in there and listening to them, because quite often people
have a preconceived idea of what is going to happen to them, that
they are just going to be dumped by Government, that people are
going to walk away, let them flood and not care about them. We
see this in the adaptation took kit which has been raised very
much in `Making space for water'. I always think and feel passionately
that the community has got to be put at the heart of everything
and unless communication comes first, then that kind of thing
will not be developed, and I have to tell you that one of my presentations—I
am being the honest broker, I can go into communities, and one
of my slides actually says, "Ban the sandbag," and I
can actually give details as to why I feel that sandbags should
be banned, and because I have been flooded myself and I am trusted,
that is accepted far better, and that is why I believe there is
such a role for the National Flood Forum here. Yes, I do think
we ought to be funded to enable us to take on more staff so that
we can become a bigger organisation, to go into communities, to
actually listen to their worries and speak honestly with them.
Mr Waterhouse: There has been
a distinct shift, I think, in recent years from flood defence
to flood resilience, it is obvious in the bill. By that it shifts
the emphasis away from capital schemes to individual projects,
parish, town, street projects. This is where we are into a new
area of concern because we are getting round to the sort of double
glazing scenario of the sixties and seventies where flood products,
food resilience products, et cetera, are seen as the new double
glazing in some respects. Many, many people try to get in on the
market. Many thing are good, many things are bad, obviously, and
there is a need for much more advice, much more regulation.
Lynne Jones: To what extent?
Q48 Chairman: You mean the effectiveness
of the products?
Mr Waterhouse: The effectiveness
of the products, the information about the products. More importantly,
the ease of fitting. I have seen old ladies of 80 with a great
big metal sheet, four feet wide and three feet high, and that
is their flood door, but there is no chance of ever fitting it
because they cannot lift the thing. You need things that are appropriate.
Mary spoke about resilience. I am in that situation because if
my house floods again, which I hope it will not, our house is
now resilient to flooding by the usual measures of ceramic tiles,
cement rendered floors, all the usual things you can do. It is
probably the old Yorkshire saying, "What do you do when you
get flooded? You open the back door and let the water out and
you're back to normal again!" This is where we are heading.
Ideally, I would like it to stay outside my front door by some
means. If it does get in, then I think we will have to accept
that. We would not like it, but much more research has to be done
into how houses are made resilient because with the decline in
capital expenditure, with the decline in flood defences in this
approach there are going to be more and more people and unfortunately
there are going to be more and more people living in seventies,
eighties, nineties designed houses, plasterboard, chipboard, MDF
construction. In my profession I deal every week with people who
have been flooded or nearly flooded and the houses will not stand
the flood. It is false economy. It is false economy for the insurance
industry as well to replace like for like, to replace plasterboard
with plasterboard because the next time it floods it is more expensive
again. Why not change the materials?
Q49 Lynne Jones: Who should be responsible
for bringing about these changes? Obviously products have to be
fit for purpose, but beyond that—and obviously your organisation
can offer advice but you do not have the necessary resources,
I would presume, to do that so which body should have that role?
Mr Waterhouse: We would like the
resources.
Q50 Lynne Jones: Is that a role you
would like to take on?
Mr Waterhouse: We have discussed
this idea of being like the consumer association for flooding,
or flooding products and things like that, so that we could at
least make recommendations. We do not want to endorse anything,
but we are a very small organisation.
Q51 Lynne Jones: So newsletters do
have information about products, but you cannot make any recommendations?
Mr Waterhouse: Yes. We cannot
make any suggestions.
Q52 Lynne Jones: It is a bewildering
array.
Mr Waterhouse: It is.
Ms Dhonau: There obviously is
a Kitemark system but there are only about five or so products
that have actually got a Kitemark. It is a very expensive, bureaucratic
system. It is in the middle of being upgraded at the moment, but
it costs an awful lot of money to get a Kitemark. Many flood inventors
have perhaps drawn their idea on the back of a cigarette box,
or whatever, and then developed it and have not got £100,000
plus to get a Kitemark, therefore their product is not recognised,
but it may well be just as good as a product with a Kitemark but
because they cannot afford to get a Kitemark then it is a substandard
product. I would like to see an easier mechanism of actually testing
products that are not too expensive and not so bureaucratic. For
example, going back to sandbags, there are now many alternatives
to sandbags that are available which will actually soak up about
20 litres of water. There are six or seven different kinds on
the market and it would be nice really if we could say, "Well,
this one costs six quid and it does actually absorb 20 litres
of water." I have been on ITV this morning holding one up.
It is a bit like a Pampers nappy for giants, for those who have
had children, and you can literally balance it on your finger
and it would be super to back up a flood door with something like
that for an older person who cannot actually lift a heavy sandbag,
and some of them actually are biodegradable and can be torn up
and put on your garden. So there are many twenty-first century
alternatives to flood protection that I really think ought to
be given some way, apart from the Kitemark, of recognising what
they do.
Q53 Lynne Jones: Mr Waterhouse talked
about research. Who should carry out that research into developing
or helping inventors to get their projects approved?
Mr Waterhouse: I have worked throughout
Europe and floods are not new. Products to defend people against
floods are not new either and there are many, many thousands,
hundreds of thousands of products out there. Things come on the
market like any sort of market, but the principle is still the
same, keeping water out of your house, when it is in the house
to try and mitigate the effects of the damage from it. The market
will drive who decides on what. Syria is building a research establishment,
things like that, and many universities advise on flood products,
and we get many wonderful schemes, painting your house in plastic
or even floating your house away and floating it back!
Q54 Lynne Jones: I am confused because
you started off saying we need more regulation and now you are
saying the market will develop these products so we can leave
it to the market?
Mr Waterhouse: No, we need more
regulation on the products and the type, the suitability of them,
the effectiveness of them.
Q55 Lynne Jones: But that is the
Kitemarking process?
Mr Waterhouse: It is, yes. The
Kitemarking process, as I see it, is very worthy. It is very,
very expensive.
Q56 Lynne Jones: So what would you
change then?
Mr Waterhouse: The most frequent
request we have from manufacturers at the Flood Forum is, "We
can't afford to go through the Kitemark process." There is
nothing wrong with the Kitemark process, but we would like a better
way of doing it. We would like a better way of regulation of the
products.
Q57 Lynne Jones: So would you like
an organisation to offer grants for people who have got promising
products, or what?
Mr Waterhouse: Yes.
Lynne Jones: Who should do that then?
BTI used to give the odd grant and one of my favourite flood protection
products, which actually because it is a permanent product cannot
have the Kitemark at the moment, is one of these fit and forget
air bricks where you actually take out your old air brick and
you put in this new one. It has a series of small balls in it
that rides up with the flood water and blocks the hole. It is
also very good environmentally because it does the same if it
is windy. The minute the flood water and the wind has gone, it
unblocks. This particular young couple who have invented this
have got a lovely solution for an automatic rising flood door,
but they have not got the money to develop it. I would like to
see some grant for companies like that to actually be able to
develop something.
Chairman: I think this leads me, after
having watched television last night, to say that this is a definite
candidate for Dragon's Den, and we will move for a supplementary
from David Drew!
Q58 Mr Drew: I just want to be clear
on your view on riparian ownership. We buried riparian ownership
and now we have restored it to health. There must be limitations
on how much we can rely on riparian ownership to take some of
the measures we need to take to deal with the flooding problem,
so where would you put riparian ownership in terms of this bill
and, more importantly, the action that needs to follow this bill?
Mr Waterhouse: I think riparian
owners are essential really to any sorts of flood defence mechanisms,
but with most problems we seem to come across it is the overlapping
ownership, not just the riparian ownership. In many, many, many
instances a stream in a village will run down the street and the
riparian owners will be the householders, the landowners on one
side, and on the other side the Highways Agency because they own
one and a half metres from the centre of the road. We would like
to see much more clarity in the regulations on riparian ownership
and also on responsibilities. In many rural areas the riparian
owners are obviously the farmers and there are many, many issues
with farming practices, farming methodologies, crop planting issues
and also the retention of water by crop planting. So I think we
would like to see a much clearer definition and a much clearer
understanding on behalf of people who are riparian owners of their
responsibilities.
Q59 Chairman: Just to follow that
line of thought, one of the themes in the bill is to try and make
certain that you have a clear identification of responsibilities
and the way that it cascades down, if you like, right from the
top, the Environment Agency, through all the local authorities
down to who is responsible, because when we took evidence on Pitt
one of the key criticisms was that we did not know who was responsible.
The second one very much focused on the riparian issues because
it dealt with lack of maintenance. Do you think the bill deals
adequately with those issues which seem to be so central to the
issues you have come across as an organisation?
Ms Dhonau: Obviously the bill
is mentioned on the Environment Agency's literature Living
on the Edge and also it did touch briefly on the Home Information
Packs. They dismissed the fact that it should be put into the
Home Information Packs. I do believe that when a person takes
on a property they have to be made aware—and one of the
things I will be suggesting in the consultation is that again
it is down to the parish councils. I have been working with quite
a few parish councils that were flooded prior to 2007 where it
was very obvious that riparian owners of a stream had perhaps
built over or put all their lawn cuttings here also that farmers
were unaware that they had got to maintain it because they had
got and not stopped to think that they were going to increase
people's flood risk further down, and many other priorities within
their working day. Again, there just needs to be some clarification
on that. Perhaps Living on the Edge ought to be given to
every single person as soon as they move in, even if it is through
the solicitor, or whatever, so that people are made aware of what
their duties are and what is expected of them. You have probably
read in the National Flood Forum one of the newsletters where
we actually gave some guidance to people on riparian ownership
to actually try and get it out into the masses really.
Mr Waterhouse: With the litigious
society we have now one of the frequent requests we have is, "How
do we sue the person who caused our flooding?" Going back
to Rylands v. Fletcher, the law of tort in flood damages, the
fact that someone is always looking for someone to blame. Insurance
companies more and more now are looking at changes in land usage,
changes in crop patterns. When you are flooded, you blame everybody
else upstream. Sometimes it might be the person downstream who
has blocked a culvert or something, but it is always the upstream
person's fault why you are flooded. I would like to see much more
clarification and much more regulation on how this can be prevented
and how these landowners can be brought into this consultation
because in many cases they refuse to take part. They do not see
why their methods of a lifetime are causing flooding or contributing
to flooding. It is very difficult, but at the moment there is
no mandate for them to help out. Some of them do out of the goodness
of their own hearts, but in many cases, no, they just continue.
Q60 Lynne Jones: Just picking up
on that, there is a provision in the bill that riparian owners
will have to be informed. Is that adequate? There is another issue,
is there not, that sometimes having a stream which flows very
fast sometimes it is useful to have some blockages so long as
there is an area for flooding, so that information will have to
be perhaps more tailor-made to the particular situation and particular
area. It may not necessarily be appropriate just to have a one-size-fits-all
approach to it, so is the bill adequate in relation to that? There
is an issue you raised about litigation. Should there be some
provision that somebody who by some action or failure to take
action is actually causing the nuisance by perhaps blocking the
flow of water? Should there be some provision along those lines
in the bill?
Mr Waterhouse: The bill says that
the EA has the overlying responsibility, but then it trickles
down again—sorry about the pun—through internal drainage
board, local authorities, the Environment Agency, all the utilities,
et cetera, et cetera, and unless there is something that requires
landowners, riparian owners, to accept even the consultation side
of it, to be involved, many people will not. I would like to see
anybody within a catchment who contributes to flooding being involved.
They must be involved. They must accept some of the responsibilities,
whether rightly or wrongly. People are flooded and the councils
must have the ability to—like we are here today.
Ms Dhonau: I believe there ought
to be a law of statutory nuisance because so many people are flooded
by other people and there is nowhere for them to go. There is
no redress and I believe that that has to be in the bill. I also
do like the mention of the mediation service because very often
people will ring me and say, "I'm being flooded by a farmer
but he's on the parish council and I'm finding it very difficult
to go and talk to him or talk to the parish council because the
parish council are very friendly with Farmer Bloggs as well."
There seems to be no redress because that kind of flooding does
cause a lot of ill-feeling and it is a very difficult nut to crack
and it is one which I feel has got to be addressed, if I could
choose one thing.
Q61 Chairman: You have dealt with
the consequences but do you think either by means, say, of a code
of practice or a statement of responsibilities those landowners
who do have first of all water courses, because those are observable
features for which they have a riparian responsibility—then,
Mr Waterhouse you made the point about what you actually did on
the land, in other words the use of it, that over time there should
be developed some kind of statement of responsibility which makes
it very clear to the riparian owner what they actually had to
do in order to mitigate the flood—let us use the word "nuisance"—which
could emanate from their holding? What you have talked about is
what you do after the event, but I think you are equally interested
in the preventative capability before?
Ms Dhonau: Absolutely.
Mr Waterhouse: Any sort of new
development now, obviously working in this field, any sort of
flood risk assessment involves some form of retention, drainage,
soak aways, the retention of water. Let us not be harsh on the
farmers. It is not always the farmers, it is usually large supermarkets,
large industrial areas that have been tarmaced over, instantaneous
run-offs, whereas any sort of planning application now has to
incorporate some form of lagoon retention. I would like to see
more of that and I would like to see people accept that. It is
probably wrong to say that it is purely farmers. I take your point,
though, about having small cascades of ponds which hold back the
water where you can retain the water so that it can dissipate
down through, this is where we need to come from. It is common
practice in other countries, this sort of drainage system.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
You have been very helpful. I am glad you have brought a practical
and personal perspective because sometimes when you are dealing
with legislation it is very easy to get caught up in the technicalities
and lose sight of what we are actually dealing with, particularly
the human dimension of flooding, which you have very adequately
dealt with. Thank you very much for coming before us and we have
enjoyed hearing what you have had to say.
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