ADA Response to Defra's Improving Surface Water Drainage Consultation
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Dr Jean Venables OBE - Chief Executive 8 Address: 12 Cranes Drive, Surbiton, Surrey, KT5 8AL 0 Web: www.ada.org.uK 0 2 Email: [email protected] / 4 TeL: 020 8399 7350 0 / Fax: 020 8390 9368 0 3 – 0 . 1 n The Association of Drainage Authorities o i s r Response to: e V L a n i Defra’s F Improving Surface Water Drainage February 2008 ConsuLtation to accompany proposaLs set out in the Government’s Water Strategy Future Water ADA’s Response to Defra’s Improving Surface Water Drainage - 30/04/07 Contents 01 The Role of ADA 01 An Introduction to Internal Drainage Boards 02 Map1 - Geographical Distribution of IDBs 03 Improving surface water drainage - ADA’s Response 03 Consultation Questions 03 Part 2: Surface Water Management Plans 10 Part 3: Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) 13 Part 4: Drainage of surface water to the public sewerage system – review of Section 106 of the Water Industry Act 1991 15 Omissions The Role of ADA The Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA) is the membership organisation for those involved in water level management. Its members include Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs), the Environment Agency Regional Flood Defence Committees and the Northern Ireland Rivers Agency. Associate Members include Local Authorities, Consultants, Contractors and Suppliers. The main activities of ADA involve a wide range of work for and on behalf of its members including facilitating the exchange of ideas and promoting discussions to solving common problems and/or introduction of new approaches to members' work. ADA responds to consultations from the Government, either on behalf of members or by facilitating individual member responses. It represents the interests of Drainage Authorities and other members nationally and locally, for example in relation to Bills in Parliament, other legislative measures, and local public inquiries. ADA acts collaboratively with other appropriate bodies or institutions to pursue the Association's objectives including linking to Europe through ADA's membership of EUWMA, the European Union of Water Management Associations. ADA obtains and disseminates information on matters of importance and interest to members, and provides assistance on technical and administrative problems. ADA organises exhibitions and demonstrations such as Catchment 08 for the benefit of members, maintains a website and publishes the quarterly ADA Gazette. 1 An Introduction to Internal Drainage Boards IDBs are long established bodies operating predominantly under the Land Drainage Act 1991 and have permissive powers to undertake work to secure drainage and water level management of their districts and undertake flood risk management works on ordinary watercourses within their districts (i.e. watercourses other than ‘main river’). Much of their work involves the maintenance of rivers, drainage channels and pumping stations, facilitating drainage of new developments and advising on planning applications. They also have statutory duties with regard to the environment and recreation when exercising their permissive powers. The IDBs in existence in England in April 2005 covered 1.2 million hectares of England – representing 9.7% of the total land area (Map 1) 2. Their average annual expenditure is in excess of £49 million, they employ directly or indirectly over 576 staff, have assets in excess of £145 million and operate and maintain over 500 pumping stations, 22,000 km of watercourse, 174 automatic weed screen cleaners and have a part in providing flood protection to 879,000 properties and 600,000 people. They also have responsibilities associated with 398 Sites of Special Scientific Interest plus other designated environmental areas. 1 Taken from Internal Drainage Board Review: Final Report February 2006 http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/studies/idbrev/report.pdf 2 Map 1, Geographical Distribution of IDBs http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/studies/idbrev/map1.pdf Page | 1 ADA’s Response to Defra’s Improving Surface Water Drainage - 30/04/07 Geographical Distribution of IDBs in England 2 Map 1. Geographical Distribution of IDBs in England http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/studies/idbrev/map1.pdf Page | 2 ADA’s Response to Defra’s Improving Surface Water Drainage - 30/04/07 Improving surface water drainage - ADA’s Response The Association of Drainage Authorities welcomes Defra’s consultation to develop the key policy proposals relating to surface water drainage in the Government’s new Water Strategy, Future Water. ADA looks forward to further opportunities to develop suggestions made within ADA’s response with the consultation team. The Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA) has reviewed the Improving surface water drainage consultation at length and wishes to provide the consultation team with ADA’s current thoughts and comments to aid your ongoing efforts with the Government’s Water Strategy. ADA’s Response to the consultation document has been based upon the views expressed at ADA Executive, Technical & Environment and Finance & Administration Committees, Regional Branch meetings and written responses from ADA’s wider membership following the publication of The Pitt Review: Interim Report. As suggested in the consultation document ADA has chosen to use the questions provided as the basis for comment on the consultation’s proposals and omissions. Each consultation question is provided as appears in Part 1: Consultation Overview followed by ADA’s comment indented in italics and bold. Consultation Questions Part 2: Surface Water Management Plans Q.1 Are Surface Water Management Plans the right solution to co-ordinate surface water drainage? How do they fit with current responsibilities? How else might a strategic approach to surface water flood risk management be achieved? Figure 1 – Model for the Integration of Surface Water Management Plans into Water-Related Strategic Planning3. 3 Marston Vale Surface Waters Group Presentation Page | 3 ADA’s Response to Defra’s Improving Surface Water Drainage - 30/04/07 ADA strongly supports the creation of surface water management plans that clearly define the role of stakeholders within them. ADA considers that Water Cycle Strategies and Strategic Flood Risk Assessments must feed into and guide Surface Water Management Plans which should be enforced as supplementary planning guidance. A suitable model for how all three documents should sit together is provided in Figure 1. ADA is aware of a need for SWMPs to be enforceable which has proved an important issue in several of the current integrated urban drainage pilot studies. Q.2 Could the principles set out in Surface Water Management Plans be delivered through a voluntary arrangement? Or should producing such plans be a requirement in critical drainage areas? ADA considers that the production of surface water management plans should be a requirement across all of England and should not be limited to ‘critical drainage areas’. Indeed surface water flooding is inherently unpredictable and dictated by a mosaic of local geography and events interacting with localised weather patterns. Only producing SWMPs in critical drainage areas would either result in a fine patchwork of critical drainage hotspots across the country which cannot be strategically managed or a situation where areas hit by surface water flooding are not required to produce SWMPs because they are deemed not ‘critical’. Another problem that will come from limiting SWMPs to ‘critical drainage areas’, will be a failure to adhere to a catchment approach to flood risk management. Consequently the SWMPs produced are unlikely to fully consider the impacts that management practices may have on other parts of the catchment. SWMP documentation should be appropriate to the scale and nature of the location and its drainage challenges. ADA members strongly agree that SWMPs should be a statutory requirement rather than a voluntary arrangement, to ensure they are delivered fully. Q.3 If the principles of Surface Water Management Plans were a voluntary code of practice, how could we ensure that drainage stakeholders engage in the process? ADA disagrees with the voluntary production of surface water management plans. A voluntary arrangement would need a leader with neutral interests such as an Internal Drainage Board or Local Delivery Vehicle with an ability to liaise, persuade and co- ordinate amongst stakeholder interests and to sustain momentum. A voluntary arrangement brings no guarantee of success and indeed stands open to risk of failure. Q.4 If production of Surface Water Management Plans was required in critical drainage areas, what would be the best way to ensure this took place? ADA does not consider that SWMPs should be restricted to critical drainage area alone; indeed a SWMP should be prepared for all areas as part of the Local Development Framework process. Q.5 Do you think that local authorities are the appropriate body to take the lead on producing a Surface Water Management Plan? ADA is concerned with the positioning of individual local authorities taking the lead on the production of surface water management plans. It is the view of ADA that water management on a catchment basis should be the key principle in determining a strategic approach to flood risk management. Providing surface water drainage management on a local authority basis will divide catchments where rivers are often boundaries to local authority areas. Thus, the implications of any actions delivered to aid surface water drainage may not fully consider their impacts to the wider catchment under single local authority leadership. Both the European Union Water Framework Directive4 and recently 4 EU Water Framework Directive. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/index_en.html Page | 4 ADA’s Response to Defra’s Improving Surface Water Drainage - 30/04/07 launched ‘Future Water’ – The Government’s Water Strategy for England 5cite a catchment based approach to flood risk management as core objectives. Furthermore, numerous local authorities lack the necessary expertise to facilitate this role. If this position is to be fulfilled by local authorities in the future, adequate funds would need to be sought in order to invest in expertise and training.