Written evidence submitted by Essex County
Council
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This document consists of Essex County Council's
response to the EFRA Committee's request for views on the state
of Flood and Water Management Legislation.
The key concern for us surrounds the relationship
between the governance of surface water flooding and coastal and
fluvial flooding. We believe that for reasons of greater effectiveness
and to reduce bureaucracy that it would be valuable to combine
the management of both these functions into one committee within
an administrative area. That is to say that the committees should
be based on sensible groupings of Lead Local Flood Authorities
and have clear responsibility for tackling all forms of flooding
in the area rather than have Regional Flood Coastal Committees
alongside new Surface Water partnerships.
We also advise about the difficulties of districts
making key staff with large amounts of local knowledge redundant
before new funding has been identified which might have prevented
it.
FULL RESPONSE
1. The key issues covered by the consultation
into the draft Flood and Water Management Bill and the Walker
and Cave reviews are: funding mechanisms—especially concerning
the general drainage charge and the levy to the Environment Agency—and
the provision of powers to make flood risk run-off a statutory
nuisance.
2. The General Drainage Charge collects
approximately £500,000 in Essex alone for use towards flood
defences which is a significant revenue source for capital improvements.
Discussions with the Country Land & Business Association show
that they are generally pleased with how it works. They feel it
is transparent and so are confident it is being spent on their
priorities. For this reason Essex County Council is supportive
of it continuing. However we feel that, to recognise the new obligations
to deal with the risk of surface water, the revenue from the General
Drainage Charge should be available not just for coastal and fluvial
management but for surface water as well. This may involve splitting
the money with local flood partnerships or it may be a question
of ensuring that surface water alleviation schemes are considered
by Regional Flood and Coastal Committees.
3. The levy to the Environment Agency can
currently only be used for coastal and main watercourse flooding.
However there does seem to be some confusion as there have been
incidents of it being used for surface water alleviation. Allowing
it to be spent on surface water alleviation as well would give
it greater flexibility, particularly in situations where the division
between surface water and fluvial is not easy.
4. We strongly support the introduction
of a statutory nuisance power as it enforces the message that
preventing surface water is a responsibility not just of the council
but of individuals. In a two-tier system it makes sense for district
councils to have this power as they deal with other related statutory
nuisances. However given that overall management of surface water
risk lies with the county council, it's important that the county
has some way of ensuring district councils use these powers. This
is one of the reasons why Essex County Council would support all
flood management funds to come through the county council and
distributed to other flood risk management authorities in exchange
for services.
5. In terms of further required policies
to ensure that flood and water management is delivered in the
optimum manner, Essex County Council believes that the current
dual system of Regional Flood and Coastal Committees and local
flood partnerships for surface water both adds unnecessary bureaucracy
and decreases joined up thinking around flood issues. Essex would
strongly advocate a single member led flood committee which could
cover both the fluvial and coastal responsibilities of the RFCC
and the surface water responsibilities of the Lead Local Flood
Authority. This would decrease the amount of bureaucracy for both
the Environment Agency and the Lead Local Flood Authority and
ensure that there was one place where elected members were responsible
for flooding.
6. The current system of Regional Flood
and Coastal Committees is unwieldy. The Thames RFCC has over 90
members making it extremely difficult for authorities, particularly
small authorities and those on the periphery to make themselves
heard. If there were instead a series of single committees based
on administrative regions (eg Essex and the two unitaries Southend-on-Sea
and Thurrock) rather than catchment areas, this could create a
more effective way of managing the resources for flooding.
7. As with all local authorities, and indeed
the water companies, SuDS remains the largest concern and headache
of the issues related to the Flood and Water Management Act. Essex
County Council echoes the concerns of many others in pointing
out the importance of a sustainable funding system for adoption
and maintenance of SUDS, of the need for some SUDS guidelines
as soon as possible and the difficulties of managing the approval
process, particularly in a two-tier setup.
8. Essex County Council is also concerned
that much of the expertise and local knowledge of drainage issues
remains at the district level. This is absolutely right and practical.
However the need for cuts and particularly the removal of funding
for drainage from the districts means that many experienced drainage
staff are at threat of redundancy but the county council does
not currently have either the resources or the power to persuade
the districts to keep the staff. This may lead to them being expensively
re-hired either by the district or the county in a year's time.
October 2010
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