Canal & River Trust Council
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CANAL & RIVER TRUST COUNCIL Report by Julie Sharman, Head of Asset Management and Performance March 2016 Flooding Update – Impact on the Trust and Response Overview The flooding across the north of England over Christmas 2015 affected Canal & River Trust waterways across the region, most notably along the Rochdale Canal, and Calder & Hebble Navigation, and on the Aire & Calder Navigation in Leeds. In total, it is estimated that repairs will cost circa £15m to repair. Large scale infrastructure damage has occurred to bridges and embankments, with landslides and breaches, and throughout the waterways extensive damage has occurred to towpaths where they have been scoured and washed away, necessitating their closure on safety grounds. Debris and silt has been strewn across a wide area. Since January, there has been a fantastic response from volunteers who have now contributed over 3,000 hours of work and have largely been responsible for the re-opening of towpaths through most of the stricken sections. The Trust’s team have been focusing on the repairs and significant work required for reopening of the waterways. Funding requests have been submitted through local authorities and to date £5.5m has been secured to rebuild Elland Bridge, a vital public link in the town of Elland where a temporary footbridge has been installed, and a second utilities bridge has been put in place to divert the numerous essential services off the old listed bridge so that it may be carefully demolished prior to the new bridge being built. By way of introduction, attached to this paper are 3 reports: Flood Impact Report to Defra – dated 27 January 2016 (Attachment 1) Report on the Volunteer contribution to the Trust’s response to the Floods – dated 10 February 2016 (Attachment 2) Update to Defra – dated 17 February 2016 (Attachment 3) At the meeting, Julie Sharman will provide a further update to bring the Council up-to-date. There will be an opportunity for Council Members to contribute their views on the response to date and to consider any other steps that the Trust should take now and in the future to protect the waterways in future. Julie Sharman February 2016 Flooding Update – Impact on the Trust & Response – Council Paper March 2016 1 ATTACHMENT 1 Elland Bridge We have now installed a temporary footbridge at Elland Road. This has helped to reconnect the local community with the town centre, and is already heavily used. Utilities within the original bridge will now need to be diverted before de-construction can commence. Timescale for this are causing us some concern but we continue to work with partners to resolve this. Volunteer Effort A ‘Herculean’ effort from volunteers has helped to reopen the first stretches of flood damaged towpath along the Rochdale Canal. Volunteers supported by staff from Canal & River Trust have been out in all weather and have moved over 200 tonnes of stones and gravels to fill holes and long scours that were left by flood waters along the popular towpath through Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden. So far over 120 volunteer days of work have been carried out. Clearly the community have come together to repair the damage to their canal in recognition of the public service role they play within local communities. Similar work has taken place at Elland in the ‘Action Day’ on 23 January in which around 50 volunteers joined military trainees from Harrogate in clearing debris to make the towpath accessible, and re-building both the footpath and the adjoining wall. Flooding Update – Impact on the Trust & Response – Council Paper March 2016 2 PREVIOUS BRIEFING 20th January 2016 Summary o The Canal & River Trust has sustained c. £15m of damage to our canals, locks and bridges severing communities and disrupting local businesses. o Following our immediate response, we have worked with local stakeholders and volunteers to make our waterways safe, assessed the damage and sought funding to cover the costs. o We have launched a public appeal - https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/donate/flood-appeal - for voluntary donations, which we anticipate making a modest, but symbolic, contribution to our overall costs – and have put out a call for volunteers to help with the clean-up. o Calderdale Council has secured £5.5m from DfT to rebuild Elland Bridge - with work underway on a new pedestrian foot bridge due to open this week. o We continue to evaluate the damage and open what we can but we are still seeking to secure an additional £10m approximately, which breaks down as follows: Cumbria £2m Leeds £3m Calderdale £10m Total £15m o We believe steps should be taken to ensure the Trust is treated equally with national parks and made eligible for emergency funding. Impact Our engineers have been working with local authorities to assess the impact of the floods on waterside people and communities. We have so far identified structural damage at 30 locations (images attached) the worst of which include: Cumbria Stainton Aqueduct & embankment collapse Calderdale Breach between Lock 17 and 16 Landslip at Cutting 17 (between Locks 15 and 16) Severe damage / partial breach due to overtopping between Lock 12 and 11 Severe river erosion at Embankment 13 - Whitely Arches (land owned by EA) Elland Bridge collapse Elland Lock - heavy scouring and damage to adjoining areas Salterhebble embankment No. 1 damaged Park Nook Lock - heavy scouring and damage to adjoining areas Towpath between Park Nook Lock and Brookfoot Lock damaged Crowther Bridge collapse (not CRT owned) Kirklees Low Lock - heavy scouring and damage to adjoining areas West Yorkshire Figure of Three Lock and navigation – heavy scouring Knostrop Lock nose end failure Breach at Knostrop Weir (Leeds Flood Alleviation Scheme) Communities: Local people have been significantly impacted, most visibly through the closure of Elland Bridge, severing local communities, but also through the closure of approximately 20 miles of towpath, taking away vital routes for walkers and cyclists (for example commuters) who rely on these routes. Flooding Update – Impact on the Trust & Response – Council Paper March 2016 3 o Businesses: The closure of towpaths and canal navigation has a tangible impact on those local businesses that rely on the waterway, from waterside pubs to hireboat companies such as Shire Cruises. Shire Cruises a local hire boat company have lost approx. 90% of their cruising network. This will significantly impact on their business. They are currently looking at their options to mitigate including relocating their fleet of 20 boats. This would impact on the 22 jobs. British Marina Federation estimate the impact on the economy of the floods within Calderdale to be £4,000,000. o Boat owners: The floods have severely affected many individual boat owners - some of whom live on their boats as their primary residence – with many boats damaged, sunk or stranded. We are still assessing the extent of the damage. We are estimating that approximately 23 boats have been stranded and are in the process of being recovered. Progress so far o Elland Bridge has been a major focus of our efforts. Working with Calderdale we have secured £5.5m to undertake the repairs or complete rebuild of this vital link. A temporary footbridge is being planned to secure pedestrian access. We hope this will be in place by the weekend. o Community: there has been a great community response to the floods – as illustrated by some of the stories we have been sharing on our website – and we have put out a call for volunteers to help with the clean-up. Our initial focus is on the areas of higher population - Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Todmorden - where towpaths are most heavily used and we are mobilising our teams along with local people to clear towpaths of debris with a view to reopening where possible. We have also: o Provided support to the emergency services, responding to requests to review and inspect sites of concern and agreeing actions; o Inspected our assets for defects, identifying schedules of work required; o Started to commission designs for some of the larger repairs; o Carried out some elements of site clearance at one landslide location in particular; o Contacted boaters with the intent to deal with any specific local issues for them; o Carried out a hydrographic depth survey for the Rochdale Canal to assess the amount of dredging required. Funding The floods have left a heavy financial burden on the Trust which will inevitably divert funds from our other planned works. We have explored a number of third party funding options which include o Local Authorities - Our funding team have made funding submissions to relevant councils and we are awaiting the outcomes. o Bellwin Fund – We understand from DCLG that the Trust is not eligible to apply for this funding directly, as it is intended for local authorities, emergency services and national park authorities. DCLG advised that we work in partnership with local authorities to submit bids. Through established relationships we have been able to work with Calderdale, Cumbria and Leeds to develop requests for funding based on estimates of damages. o Heritage Lottery Fund / Historic England – We have contacted local offices but there is no funding available for emergency works. Once emergency works are completed, we will apply for grants through the usual process for particular historic structures (i.e. Stainton Aqueduct in Cumbria), however there is no guarantee of these applications succeeding. Flooding Update – Impact on the Trust & Response – Council Paper March 2016 4 o DfT – The £40m of funding announced for roads and bridges in Lancashire and Cumbria does not cover the areas where we have experienced damaged assets apart from Elland Bridge o EU Emergency Fund (Solidarity Fund) – The Trust is ineligible for this source of funding as it can only be accessed by member state governments directly, however, should the UK Government apply for this fund we would be interested in seeing if we could access this.