Flood and Water Management Bill - will it happen?

Talk of an early election is increasing concern that the important Flood and Water Management Bill will not make it to the statute book in this short final session of Parliament. Tomorrow (15^th Dec) the bill is scheduled to receive its second reading. The Bill is critical to tackling how flooding is managed. It promotes the unified holistic approach to flooding that Sir Michael Pitt saw as being vital.

Photo: Ciria

The big changes incorporated in the bill include a major change to the role of the Environment Agency so that it becomes the overall responsible body for flooding. The local authorities will take responsibility for surface water drainage removing ambiguity as to who is responsible. These are big changes and are critical to ensuring the lessons are learnt from the 2007 flood’s. It should also provide a much needed boast to the use of Sustainable Urban Drainage (SUD) especially in new developments where in future SUD must be consider in developing solutions to surface water run-off.

The blog remains concerned that adequate funding for local authorities to implement the bill has not been provide. It has been assumed that the savings local authorities make in no longer being responsible for private sewers will enable them to fund their new responsibilities. Yet there is still no sign of the enabling regulations needed to ensure the transfer of sewers happens by March 2011. Nor has the cost been included in the Final Determination. Part of the solution lies in Local Authorities becoming more creative and imaginative in how they secure the resources needed and seeking to work in partnership to share scarce resources. It will require one or two highly experienced engineers in each local authority to commission the work not a large department.