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2017-18 End of Year Report

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2017-18 End of Year Report 2017-18 End of Year Report 1 SOMERSET RIVERS AUTHORITY 2017-18 END OF YEAR REPORT CONTENTS Part 1: Introduction: 2 Part 2: Performance: Delivery - 3, Finance - 4-6 Part 3: Progress of Works in Detail: Key Projects - 7-14, SRA Enhanced Programmes - 15-35 Part 4: Progress on Key Elements of Somerset’s 20 Year Flood Action Plan: 36-38 PART 1: INTRODUCTION In 2017-18, Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) spent just over £3.6million on actions designed to give Somerset extra flood protection and resilience. This End of Year Report covers everything done, still being done, or not done between the start of April 2017 and the end of March 2018. Part 2 shows where the SRA’s money has come from and how much has been spent in each SRA workstream - Dredging & River Management, Land Management, Urban Water Management, Resilient Infrastructure and Building Community Resilience. Part 2 also gives details of how much of their budget allocation has so far been claimed by the SRA’s delivery partners. Part 3 opens with major projects, then moves on to smaller actions grouped according to SRA workstreams, including all actions from the SRA 2017-18 Enhanced Programme and actions carried forward from previous years. For much more information about full programmes in earlier years, works in progress and works coming up, visit the Flood Risk Work section of www.somersetriversauthority.org.uk. Part 4 looks at what progress the SRA is making against the main targets of Somerset’s 20 Year Flood Action Plan. The SRA itself emerged from this Plan, and now oversees it. A note on Somerset Rivers Authority: The SRA is a partnership between 11 of Somerset’s existing flood risk management authorities: Somerset County Council, estW Somerset Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council, Sedgemoor District Council, South Somerset District Council, Mendip District Council, the Axe Brue and Parrett Internal Drainage Boards, the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Wessex Regional Flood & Coastal Committee. The SRA’s purpose is to provide a higher standard of flood risk management than is affordable from the existing budgets of those flood risk management authorities. Photographic credits: The front cover image by Turner Photography shows Van Oord’s water injection dredging vessel Borr, with its rear injection bar raised for demonstration purposes, on the River Parrett near Westonzoyland Pumping Station. All images copyright © Somerset Rivers Authority 2018, except for those used by kind permision of: p.1 and p.7 Turner Photography, p.9 Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium (SDBC), p.12 Hendrik Robinson of JacksonHyder, p.13 and p.15 Environment Agency, p.16 SDBC, p.17 South Somerset District Council, p.20 Environment Agency, p.21 South West Drone Images, p.22 and p.25 FWAG SW, p.24 Stephen Banks of Watershed PR & Marketing, p.26 Westcountry Rivers Trust, p.31 SDBC, p.34 Didier Lebrun of Somerset County Council. 2 PART 2: PERFORMANCE AND FINANCE - Delivery Progress Summary Delivery: Summary 2017-18 saw the SRA delivering its third annual Enhanced Programme of works. Twenty-three actions were approved by the SRA Board for delivery across Somerset. The total 2017-18 funding from SRA Local Partners (council tax and contributions from Somerset’s IDBs) was £2.843million. After provisions were made for contingency (£95k), four staff and overheads (£200k), and £150k was put aside for Sowy/King’s Sedgemoor Drain enhancements and/or pioneer dredging, the amount available for the 2017-18 Enhanced Programme was £2.398m. 2017-18 also saw the SRA and its partners continuing to work on actions that began life in earlier years. Some of these were always expected to take more than one calendar year to deliver; others were delayed for a variety of reasons, such as environmental considerations, issues with land ownership, or sheer complexity. An SRA action is a work or collection of associated works that gives Somerset extra flood protection or resilience, and advances Somerset’s 20 Year Flood Action Plan. Maintenance dredging of the Parrett is one action: so is the jetting of a few dozen drains. An action is recorded as completed when all costs have been fully claimed by the SRA’s delivery partners. This can be several months after works on the ground have finished. By the end of March 2017, 44 SRA-funded actions had been completed. At the start of the 2017-18 financial year (in April 2017), the SRA had 56 actions on the go, including the 23 newly-approved by the SRA Board in March 2017. Table A (below) shows that 16 actions were recorded as completed during 2017-18, leaving 40 still in progress. Table A: Action Status Table Actions in the 2017-18 Actions from DCLG* Funded Enhanced Programme - previous years’ actions Local Partners Funding Enhanced Status of Actions Programmes - Local Partners and 2015- 16 Interim Funding Actions completed by end of March 2017 N/A 40 4 Actions programmed for 2017-18 23 27 6 Actions completed during 2017-18 4 12 0 Actions in progress 19 15 6 * 2014-15 Funding from the Department of Communities & Local Government (DCLG), as it was then called. This is money given to support Somerset’s 20 Year Flood Action Plan, before the SRA was formally launched, then inherited by the SRA. Table A excludes key projects funded using Growth Deal money from the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership (HotSWLEP). More information about these projects can be found on page 5 and in Part 3a of this report. Part 3b gives detailed information about what has been achieved, and what is being achieved, on all actions in the SRA’s 2017-18 Enhanced Programme and on all actions carried forward from previous years. 3 Delivery: Financial Spend by Workstream The pie-chart below shows SRA money spent during 2017-18, by Workstream. The figures show funding from all sources, namely SRA Local Partners (council tax and contributions from Somerset’s Internal Drainage Boards), the Heart of the SW Local Enterprise Partnership (HotSWLEP) Growth Deal Fund, Interim Funding from 2015-16 and DCLG funding from 2014. All SRA-funded actions are part of the SRA’s five main Workstreams, delivered for the SRA by its delivery partners (local councils, Environment Agency, IDBs, Natural England, FWAG SW). • W1 - Dredging and River Management • W2 - Land Management including natural flood management activities • W3 - Urban Water Management including Sustainable Urban Drainage Schemes (SuDS), planning and enforcement • W4 - Resilient Infrastructure including improvements and extra works to stop roads flooding • W5 - Building Local Resilience, giving inspiration, support, advice, information and practical help to communities, households, businesses, and landowners across Somerset to encourage and enable them to become more resilient and resistant to the impacts of flooding Amount Spent* by SRA in 2017-18 by Workstream (£’000)** Most SRA spending during 2017-18 was in W1, Dredging and River Management. £476k was spent on maintaining dredged profiles, silt monitoring, and de-silting with a further £162k spent on the Environment Agency’s Wessex De-silt Top Up. The SRA contributed £300k to the £4.35m Cannington Flood Alleviation Scheme which was operational over the winter of 2017-18 and stopped the village flooding. Other spending included: £206k on Main RiverAsset Improvements, £96k on improvements to pumping stations, £43k on tree work along the River Brue, and £23k on a variety of extra works in South Somerset and Sedgemoor. The SRA gave £65k of Local Partner funding to the Taunton Strategic Flood Alleviation Improvements Scheme (not to be confused with the £65k also given to this scheme from HotSWLEP funds - see next page). Other funds were spent on delivering work continued from previous years. 4 Natural Flood Management projects in W2 were funded by both HotSWLEP and Local Partners’ money. During 2017-18, £363k was spent on Hills to Levels schemes to ‘slow the flow’ of water down to vulnerable areas, projects to encourage better soil husbandry and so reduce surface water run-off, and visits to investigate problems with road flooding and subsequent work on land management solutions. £137k of this spend came from 2017-18 Local Partner funding. Work continued on W3, Urban Water Management. A small rain garden project, popular with residents, was completed in Taunton. Other projects have been focused on research and investigation: the lifespan of the EU-backed Sponge initiative is 2016 to 2020: so this workstream has so far not had cause for significant capital expenditure. During 2017-18, £37k was spent. On W4, Resilient Infrastructure, £703k of Local Partner funding was spent during 2017-18. Actions included a package of enhanced highway maintenance programmes (de-silting structures, drain jetting, gully emptying, targeted edge of road clearing - £392k), a new drainage scheme on the A38 at Rumwell (£115k - came in under budget), and new drainage pipes to re-direct floodwater away from a low blind bend on the A372 at Pibsbury Corner in Huish Episcopi (£25k - also under budget). The remaining £171k funded inspections and remedial works to culverts under roads in IDB areas (£73k), CCTV surveys of drains and culverts, and Local Flood Risk Management Measures continued from previous years (such as Old Cleeve to Blue Anchor drainage upgrades). SRA spend on W5, Building Local Resilience, was £53k in 2017-18. Working with communities has a pace that varies from place to place; it can take time to build up trust, develop ideas and get the best from people. The SRA-funded Community Resilience Officer has worked closely in the past year with flood-affected communities, and grants have been given to communities for training and equipment. Phase Two of the Levels Land Trust scheme has progressed, using funds given by DCLG in 2014.
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