FLOOD & WATER MANAGEMENT
Anne Mcintosh MP
Michael Pitt’s review of the summer 2007 floods, giving the authorities that manage flood risk better powers to do so and putting local authorities in charge of dealing with local flood risk. However, none of the provisions relating to local authorities’ flood risk management strategies have yet to come into effect.
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ollowing growing pressure to introduce legislation to address the increasing threat of flooding and
water scarcity after the drought of 2004 and the floods of 2007, the previous government published a Draft Flood and Water Management Bill in April 2009 and the Flood and Water Management Act received Royal Assent in April 2010.
The Act addresses many of the recommendations from Sir
The challenge posed by flooding is set to increase in the future due to rising sea levels and changes in rainfall as a result of climate change, ageing drainage and flood defence infrastructure, more buildings in flood-prone areas and more paving, which increases the volume of water running off the ground.
Annual flood damage costs in England and Wales are around £1 billion today but could exceed £27 billion by 2080 in the worst case scenario. The Flood and Water Management Act was
therefore a very timely and vital piece of legislation.
There is a real advantage to using local advice and knowledge for flood risk management and therefore I welcome the Act which increases and ensures local influence and expertise is used. The Act requires a lead local flood authority, in each case a unitary council or county council, to develop, maintain, apply and monitor a strategy for local flood risk management in its area.
The lead local flood authority will be responsible for ensuring the strategy is put in place but the local partners can agree how to develop it in the way that suits them best. The Act sets out the minimum that a local strategy must contain, and the lead local flood authority is required to consult on the strategy with risk management authorities and the public.
Local flood risk includes surface runoff, groundwater and ordinary watercourses (including lakes and ponds). Guidance may, amongst other things, set out in more detail how the national strategy and local strategies should interact and how local strategies will need to take account of plans to manage other sources of risk.
I welcome the Flood and Water Management Act, especially in its commitment that flood risk management is maintained at the local level, using local expertise who know the areas and that an overall body, the Environment Agency, is in charge of a national strategy bringing an end to the institutional chaos, witnessed in the devastating floods of 2007.
However, there remain real concerns that during this time of economic uncertainty and budgetary constrains from
Nov/Dec 10
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