Louis Ramirez, director, commented: “this report acknowledges major failings in English flood management and paints a picture of where we need to get. Yet it falls short of recommending a clear pathway getting us there, sending a mixed signal that needs clarifying.”
“We enthusiastically support the vision of achieving a Dutch-style strategic system of delivering resilience standards across catchments,” he continued. “But we see nothing in the report’s recommendations that can deliver this.”
What we welcome:
The report describes a deteriorating situation and contrasts it with an ambitious vision of where the country should be.
The current framework of flood management, it finds, is “underpowered and fragmented,” “reactive,” and “costly.” There are “systemic coordination failures” among risk management authorities.
Further, the lack of clear goals for resilience “undermines public understanding, weakens accountability, and makes it harder to prioritise investment or measure progress.” Until we have such a benchmark, the report recognises that resilience is a “vague ambition.”
Faced with this situation, the report argues that England needs to decide what level of resilience is appropriate and to build a Dutch-style system to deliver it across catchments, overseen by a single body capable of making sure it all works smoothly.
Recommendations lack detail:
The report is emphatic that levels of appropriate resilience must be clearly defined. Yet it has particularly little to say about what levels of funding are required to deliver them.
The report calls for more money for: Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFAs), catchment-based partnerships, flood action groups, the fire & rescue service, an undefined national oversight body capable of making everyone work together effectively, farmers, a single national flood reporting service, and property flood resilience measures.
But it does not cost any of them outside of capital budgets.
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Recommendations fall short of the problems described:
The report is particularly strong in acknowledging ambiguities concerning organisational roles. Yet it shies away from recommending a single body for flooding, opting instead for better-resourced coordination.
As a reminder, the current system gives responsibility to the EA for flooding from named rivers, the ground, and the sea, but not from unnamed rivers or surface water, or sewers. Can better resourcing and oversight make this fragmented system work smoothly? We are not sure.
One figure the committee does offer is to recommend that the government spend £1.5bn a year on capital budgets by 2030. This is welcome, but there are several issues - particularly, we believe this figure is inadequate.
Primarily, the report fails to acknowledge that this figure is based on outdated modelling by the National Infrastructure Commission from 2013. This was using the previous system of estimating flood risk (NAFRA1) as well as prior to the inflation crisis. As a result, it is based on lower estimated flood risk and underestimates construction costs.
Further, this figure comes from modelling done in 2013 and was based on a goal of diminishing risk. Since it has never been met and, as per the committee recommendation, wouldn’t be until 2030, it would not be enough to deliver its intended aims even by then due to rising risk in the intervening years.
The report avoids some of the more uncomfortable evidence presented to it:
We believe this report misses an opportunity to force a necessary but uncomfortable conversation around managed retreat on the coasts and from repeatedly impacted communities.
Today’s situation, wrote the not-usually-radical Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management in its evidence to the committee, “raises …unpalatable questions … Firstly, are some communities no longer viable given the change in climate already and with more to come (considering the costs of defences and insurance if they remain)?” Other witnesses echoed such concerns.
We do not believe in causing a panic. Yet, without sober consideration of the most alarming evidence, we do not see a pathway to giving flood risk management the priority it deserves.
Beyond managed retreat, we are disappointed that the report flirts with a picture where the direction of travel is positive, but simply needs to be accelerated. We believe the opposite is true.
Despite claims of record investment, we believe that capital budgets have been reduced. Committee members acknowledged this evidence in oral hearings.
As per reports from the Town and Country Planning Association, safeguards against development in the floodplain are also being destroyed.
Conclusion:
All told, the report gets much right. It understands where we need to get to. But it ultimately underestimates exactly how far we have to come, and understates the stakes.
[Main image credit: Neil Bussey / shutterstock.com]