Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-280)
MR PETER
JONES, MR
MARK PARKER,
PROFESSOR CAROLYN
ROBERTS, MR
DAVID GIBSON,
COUNCILLOR ANDY
SMITH AND
MR JEREMY
SCHOFIELD
15 JUNE 2009
Q260 Chairman: So you would recommend
that the Bill take a more holistic approach in the way that it
is drafted and is currently laid out?
Mr Schofield: Absolutely.
Q261 Paddy Tipping: We have already
talked about regional flood defence committees and they are important
and valuable bodies and local authorities, Councillor Smith, are
represented on them. In the future they will become regional flood
coastal committees. In a sense they are downgraded, are they not
because they become advisory rather than executive?
Councillor Smith: There are two
separate issues there. To answer your second question first, yes,
as I understand it, and I have had to do some pretty swift homework
on the Bill and I would not claim to be an expert—
Q262 Paddy Tipping: We all have!
Councillor Smith: Traditionally
they were in an executive sense, they advised the EA's NRG and
via them either the regional board for smaller projects or the
national board for bigger ones with a statutory weight, shall
we say, on how to deal with flooding issues. Under the Bill the
issue of coastal erosion is tacked in there. They are then downrated
to being advisory and you mentioned, which is perfectly true,
they have local authority membership, yes, but in two-tier areas
that remains with the county council who are well expert and have
all the history and the members who have sat on those boards for
years have the knowledge to deal with the flooding issues, be
that inland or related to IDBs or coastal flooding. We think it
sits very very poorly with an effective way of managing the priorities
for coastal issues, particularly coastal erosion but coastal issues
more generally which (a) are different mechanically, clearly the
things that you have to do are different and (b) also have a much
closer integration with the land planning and social and economic
issues. There is a core fundamental difference between inland
flooding in all its forms and certainly coastal erosion and estuary
strategies which might be to walk away. Ben Bradshaw when he was
a Minister in 2004 in Parliament had a quote which came out of
Hansard and got quoted quite widely. He said on one of these big
inland events that occurred that if your home is flooded then
it is traumatic, and nobody denies that, but on the coast, whether
it is erosion and you fall down the cliff or whether the EA walk
away from the estuary and say, sorry, your house is under that
island, that is terminal, and we do not think that the whole evolution
of Defra and EA policy, of which this Bill is one very focused
part, properly recognises the fundamental difference between having
a traumatic event and a terminal one. I was in Upton Upon Severn
when all those events in July 2007 occurred which was bad enough.
You cannot as a visitor visualise that the river last week was
down there and it is now up there and the café is under
nine feet of water. However, we went back the following year to
the same café and she was operating just fine and we said,
"How did you get on?" She said, "Oh well, we washed
it out. We were operating again in October," and Upton upon
Severn is still there and there is a map shop there which is great
and the economy is still working. In a coastal erosion event or
in the EA's walk-away-from-the-estuary event it is gone forever
and we do not think that fundamental difference in the circumstances
is properly encompassed in the thinking which has been generated
by the Pitt Review for very, very obvious reasons and in Defra
and EA thinking generally, and to some degree and in some aspects
the Bill perpetuates and institutionalises that lack of differentiation.
Q263 Paddy Tipping: Some of your
members, Mr Gibson, and yours, Mr Jones, will be on RDFCs; no?
Mr Gibson: No, we are represented
by the Deputy Leader of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council,
as it happens, but given the geology of the Yorkshire Wolds and
Hull they are inextricably linked and we have been very comfortable
with that relationship. I do wonder whether there are just too
many different bodies discussing these problems. It is not just
the regional flood defence committee, there are other regional
structures at which leaders meet and discuss. I am not making
a political point at all here, just that the chief executives
all get together regionally as well and I just wonder if we ought
not simplify the number of structures that we have got consistent
with doing the right job for the local people really.
Q264 Paddy Tipping: I know some of
the Gloucestershire county councillors are on it. Let me ask you
a different question. These bodies have got a power to raise a
levy and it is an important power because they use that levy to
meet local needs. Are you confident that is going to happen into
the future?
Mr Jones: No we are not. We have
spent a considerable amount of time speaking informally to the
two chairs of the RFDCs that predominantly deal with Gloucestershire.
On one we do not have any representation at all. We believed that
we were represented by a member from Swindon but it transpired
that we do not have anyone, although we pay a levy. We have engaged
with that chair and he has been very, very co-operative and very
helpful and we have made some informal arrangements. The one where
we have a member we have to negotiate with Herefordshire and South
Gloucestershire as to who that member should be. It is not a given
that it will be a Gloucestershire member; it is through negotiation,
and the other two effectively become deputies. Anyone who levies
on public money has a profound responsibility; there is no doubt
about that. I think the fundamental question of RFDCs is what
future role will they play in the strategic framework of decision
making and are they going to be effectively adding value or just
adding a layer. For me again I think it is probably the latter
rather than the former, although we have been very successful
with RFDCs and been able to work with the officials from the Environment
Agency that support that in particular in getting work done in
Gloucestershire. Now we know how it works—and I will be
absolutely honest two and a half years ago I did not know they
existed and although my authority had been paying a levy, it was
just a line on the books—and we now have a cabinet member
on the one we are allowed to have participation in. The issue
for them and the difficulty they have and the difficulty that
we understand is the diversity of the area they have to cover.
There is a profound and undeniable logic in terms of the catchment
area but it is not the only part of the equation. The other part
of the equation is, as Councillor Smith began with, this issue
about public accountability and how those decisions then are translated
to small communities or communities generally within the place.
That is the difficulty I think they have.
Q265 David Taylor: Can we turn to
the part of the Bill which deals with third party assets and designated
"things", where a structure or feature is something
that has to be designated to protect it against removal or alteration
or replacement. The Bill does list those with the powers to designate
and that certainly includes local authorities and internal drainage
boards and the Environment Agency. Councillor Smith a few minutes
ago now in another context was describing ways in which the Environment
Agency and local authorities do not always agree about the right
way ahead, and we know that is not uncommon. This process does
not require agreement between those three groups of organisations,
but it is quite possible where each have an independent power
to designate some structure or feature necessary to be protected,
indeed it is not only quite possible it is pretty likely that
there will be a disagreement between the designating powers. How
do you expect this would work in practice? How is it going to
be co-ordinated across the three groups with rather different
perspectives? I return to Councillor Smith I think.
Councillor Smith: I do not think
to be honest, sir, we are qualified to answer that question. Obviously
we are not a lead authority proposed under the Bill. To the best
of my knowledge we will not have that power. I do not think we
have anything of value to your time on that particular point unless
my colleague has anything.
Mr Schofield: Only to comment
that in the last five to ten years the coastal authorities have
worked very closely with the Environment Agency in maintaining
registers of key structures on the coast and their condition.
We have had a very constructive relationship. Whether that has
a bearing on what would follow on inland structures, I do not
know.
David Taylor: Can I be clear that district
councils do have a power to influence the lead authority at least?
Is that right, Chairman?
Chairman: The lead authority in this
context—
Q266 David Taylor: —is of course
the county, I understand that, but the district will be influencing
their counties, will they not? Let us turn to the counties then:
do you anticipate any differences of opinion either between yourselves
and your not component district councils but colleague district
councils, or the IDBs or the EA on this question of designation?
Mr Jones: On the powers of influence
most certainly a district council would have significant powers
of influence. If it felt so strongly it would be very hard for
a county to ignore that, both in the officer corps and equally
through elected members. To be quite honest, sir, I find the "thing"
clause difficult to come to terms with and I wonder if Mark has
got a better perspective on it.
Mr Parker: I would not pretend
that I am clear on this issue but I am aware that there are a
variety of structures that we have identified where there is a
perception that they have a flood risk purpose but which in reality
were not put there for that purpose. By way of example, the quay
wall in Gloucester is a parapet wall which stops pedestrians from
falling into the river. However, there is a perception that it
is actually a structurally integral flood structure whereas it
is not, so presumably there would be a range of dialogues between
the different bodies so although that particular structure effects
some form of benefit the reality is that it has not been constructed
there for that purpose. I cannot pretend I am clear on that particular
part of the Act but there does appear to be the potential for
there to be a range of questions about structures and so forth.
Q267 David Taylor: The local authorities
will have been consulted about the Bill though. What was said
to put any flesh on the bones of how this power might work in
practice?
Mr Parker: I am not clear if I
am honest.
Q268 David Taylor: Mr Gibson, you
are a lead authority.
Mr Gibson: I am just looking at
the questions that are part of the consultation and there appear
only to be four which we have responded to or will be responding
to: introducing a system of third party asset identification and
designation, which we will be supporting. Is there a case for
greater powers on third party assets than has been suggested?
We do not think there is. Albeit they might have a high possible
impact, we think they are low risk and we have suggested that
pure natural structures such as mounds and ridges might want to
be included in there as well.
Q269 David Taylor: So you do not
anticipate fundamental disagreement between the lead authority
and say the EA or say the IDPs?
Mr Gibson: The only point I think
is if you were looking at the power to maintain or impose maintenance
of a third party asset, if there was an issue about mitigation
then you might need to get a balanced view.
Q270 Chairman: You have just enunciated
a new geo-thermological feature, this hidden mountain range in
East Yorkshire!
Mr Gibson: Which is in the frozen
north of course to us, over the border.
Chairman: We have just a few minutes
before we are going to close and I am going to ask Paddy Tipping
to take up the question of SUDS.
Q271 Paddy Tipping: Mr Gibson, you
mentioned SUDS when you were talking about your BSF scheme. Local
authorities are going to become responsible for SUDS under this
legislation. Why do you think you have been chosen rather than
the water and sewerage companies?
Mr Gibson: That is a good question.
I am sure my planners could answer that question but I am not
sure I can here.
Q272 Paddy Tipping: Peter, can you
help us?
Mr Jones: Would it be permissible,
we have with us Professor Carolyn Roberts from the University
of Gloucestershire.
Q273 Chairman: Step forward Professor
Roberts.
Mr Jones: Without putting Carolyn
in difficulty she is an expert in sustainable urban draining.
Q274 Chairman: We like experts. Professor
Roberts, where are you from?
Professor Roberts: I am a Professor
at the University of Gloucestershire.
Q275 Paddy Tipping: So why are local
authorities going to become responsible for SUDS rather than water
and sewerage companies because it seems to me they have probably
got the expertise, have they not?
Professor Roberts: Yes, I should
perhaps put a slight caveat; I am actually a scientist rather
than an expert on administration or finance. I think there are
a number of issues associated with that. One is to do with scale
and I think it is essential that SUDS are appreciated in their
context, so that it is not just the immediate area that is being
designed at any one time; it is the need to put them in their
social and geographical context, mountain ranges or otherwise,
so you need to take a wide view, and I am not of the view necessarily
that those areas that are being designed at any one time are the
appropriate scale for considering this. They have to be able to
be scaled up to be considered at a regional level.
Q276 Paddy Tipping: Sure. But at
the moment there are a number of SUDS around that have been built
by private developers and nobody has taken responsibility for
the maintenance. That is not a good situation. What should we
do about it?
Mr Jones: There has been some
difficulty we know in our own area of a reluctance to adopt these
schemes because of the quality of their initial design and ultimately
the way they have been built, which I think is going to have to
be changed—and I think this is again the getting in early/partnership
issue—in the sense of in our case our colleagues in district
authorities who deal at that level of planning need to be much
more precise in the standards they require. Again it is this issue
of knowing the patch because it tends to be this analogy where
developers have been able to just connect to sewers and so forth
without any regard to the consequences of that, so I think the
local authority knowledge of their patch again working with water
authorities and the Environment Agency to be able to start looking
holistically at how this works is, one presumes, in the mind of
Defra. Carolyn is quite right that it is an issue of scale now.
We have a number of significant developments that have got what
appear at face value quite impressive SUDS until you realise that
they are impressive until you walk round the corner away from
the estate and they actually have no relationship to the rest
of the drainage network. I think that is where the debate has
to be had and this is where local authorities have to be more
persistent, particularly in the early stages, to ensure that there
is some relationship and relevance to that SUD because when they
work well they do have a disproportionately very effective way
of deflecting flooding from people's homes.
Q277 Paddy Tipping: So in terms of
planning policy you can design things and make things better for
the future and that must be right, but there is an historic legacy
there and it goes back to the point you were making earlier on
about having to pick up liabilities without knowing the cost?
Mr Turner: Indeed and the consequence
of once they are adopted the reaction of insurance companies if
they are not maintained.
Q278 Paddy Tipping: That is fine.
Mr Schofield: Can I add a very
practical issue that certainly in new housing estates the tendency
is that the SUDS network will often be in public open space and
given that is primarily in local authority ownership there is
clearly some benefit in local authorities maintaining the SUDS
as part of the management of that open space. In a practical sense,
yes, if you can solve the funding issue it is easier to manage
the unit as a whole and not have a private sector company managing
essentially a part of the local space with all the conflicts that
then would follow.
Q279 Paddy Tipping: So you could
do that via a 106 agreement for example?
Mr Schofield: You could certainly
take an initial payment to cover usually the first ten years of
the cost of maintaining it.
Q280 Chairman: May I thank you all,
including a special guest appearance from Professor Roberts. We
are always delighted when we can pluck people from the audience
to come and join us. May I thank you all very much indeed for
the evidence that you have given today. It has certainly brought
a very practical perspective to our consideration of the Bill
and for that we are most grateful to you. Thank you.
Councillor Smith: Can I thank
you Chairman for the opportunity.
Chairman: Of course if there is anything
else that you suddenly think of on the way home in a blinding
flash of inspiration, please do not hesitate to write and let
us know. Thank you very much.
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