Energy and Climate Change CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by P R H Clifford (SEV27)

I own lands beside the river Severn and am also a Parish Councillor.

My concern is over the question of engagement.

During the preparation of the Severn Estuary Shoreline Management Plan Review I was not consulted in either capacity. This was despite Defra’s Shoreline Management Plans Guidance laying down a suggested process of engagement which would have included landowners and Parish Councils.

The lack of engagement was then repeated when the Environment Agency developed their original Severn Estuary Flood Risk Management Strategy. The first I knew of that was at the public consultation stage when a short document was published with no supporting evidence. The Environment Agency had to withdraw their document because they had failed to engage properly.

My land has been in managed retreat for almost 20 years and yet no one has been monitoring the success or failure of the scheme in any organised way other than occasional visits from Natural England to discuss management consents.

My land forms part of internationally and nationally designated habitats (Ramsar, Special Area of Protection, Special Conservation Area and Site of Special Scientific Interest) all of which are in decline because of erosion, and yet that erosion is just accepted. Its cause is not studied and the effects that it may have on the drainage of surface water from our village have not been addressed.

The Environment Agency’s second attempt at a Flood Risk Management Strategy has been very different. Engagement Officers have made contact with me as a landowner, and also our Parish Council. We have been able to feed our local knowledge into the development process. We are still doing so. In early December the Environment Agency and the Lower Severn Internal Drainage Board are meeting me on site to discuss short-term problems which the Environment Agency had not envisaged through any of their studies and yet it is obvious to me as the landowner.

Site visits and early consultation on a local basis are key to understanding the dynamics of the estuary. Our part of the estuary is very under-monitored. Desktop studies only tell a partial story.

I do not believe that those promoting the proposal to build a Cardiff-Weston Barrage have thought hard enough about the engagement process. “Drop-in sessions” will not be sufficient.

I look to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee to ensure that any proposal for a Cardiff-Weston Barrage lays out clear guidelines for engagement at a local level, and that Government monitors that engagement process properly.

All owners of land beside the river Severn should be consulted, together with all Parish Councils who can, in turn, suggest other people or organisations that should be included in the consultation process. Only after that depth of engagement should any proposal be exposed to public consultation.

November 2012