Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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Strengthened coastal flood and erosion role for Environment Agency
The Environment Agency is to oversee management of all flood and erosion risk on the English coast, Defra announced today.
Climate Change and Environment Minister Ian Pearson said that the new role would increase accountability and clarity for the public and help ensure that work is properly prioritised and managed so that record levels of investment are used to best effect.
With its new strategic overview role, the Environment Agency will:
* take the lead in managing all sea flooding risk in England, and fund and oversee coastal erosion works undertaken by local authorities
* ensure that proper and sustainable long-term Shoreline Management Plans are in place for the English coastline
* work with local authorities to ensure that the resulting flood and coastal erosion works are properly planned, prioritised, procured, delivered and maintained to get maximum value for taxpayers' money
* ensure that third party defences are sustainable
The role and membership of Regional Flood Defence Committees will be widened to include coastal erosion, bringing the Environment Agency's decisions and activity on coastal erosion within the same governance framework that currently applies to flooding. Local authorities' coastal groups will continue, but become more streamlined and strategic.
Mr Pearson also announced five pilot areas to be eligible for grants towards measures to protect against flooding in the following areas: Uckfield, East Sussex; Bleasby, Nottingham; Sunderland Point, Morecambe, Lancashire; Kirkby-in-Furness and Appleby in Cumbria.
Ian Pearson said:
"This new Strategic Overview role for the Environment Agency is an exciting new joined up approach to managing flood and erosion risk on the coast. We will rationalise the present mixture of roles between the Environment Agency and 92 coastal local authorities and take a more robust and joined up approach to managing risk. "While the Environment Agency will bring this all together, they will work closely with local authorities so that, crucially, the skills and local expertise that currently exists in local authorities will continue to support this activity. "Defra and local authorities will spend around £600 million this year on flood and coastal erosion risk management in England. Taxpayers have a right to demand that this is used to manage risks in the best and most sustainable way possible in each case, whether by building hard defences or by other approaches such as beach management or realigning the coastline to take account of climate change and other pressures. Our approach seeks to ensure that all risks across the country are considered consistently and fairly, and the available funding is directed by the Environment Agency to where it is needed most.
"There is significant work to be done to bring about the changes I am announcing today. I am looking to the Environment Agency, Regional Flood Defence Committees, coastal groups and local authorities to work in close collaboration with Defra in producing and delivering a challenging implementation plan.
Barbara Young, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency said:
"This is a significant step towards the sustainable management of England's coast. Climate change and increased development has put increased pressure on flood defences - and it will continue to grow. It is vital that we take a long term view of management for all of our coastline. This new role for the Environment Agency is an exciting challenge.
"How we manage the coast is critical to the sustainability of the communities and habitats it supports. We're looking forward to working with the Government and local authorities when we take on this sustainable approach."
Mr Pearson went on to say:
"I am also pleased to announce the first areas where we will be piloting grant schemes for measures which protect individual properties from flooding. I announced the intention to have these grant schemes on 15 May and the first pilot areas have now been selected.
"These areas provide a range of different properties and flooding types and information from the pilots, together with a parallel research project, will help us take a long term decision on whether such measures should feature in our long-term approach to flood risk reduction."
Notes to editors
1. The intention to create a strategic overview role for the Environment Agency was announced in the Government's First Response to the consultation on its long term strategy for flood and coastal erosion risk management Making space for water (Defra news release of 24 March 2005).
2,. The aim of giving the Environment Agency a Strategic Overview over all flood and coastal erosion risk management in England was to improve governance, funding and delivery arrangements so that:
* We take a holistic and sustainable approach to risk which allows for robust and evidence based long term decision making.
* Our approach is truly risk driven.
* There are clear roles and accountabilities.
* We ensure that there is effective stakeholder engagement including an appropriate level of local, regional and national input to the decision making process.
* Financial planning and management arrangements provide the best value for money from the investment programme, including reducing the risk of project cost overruns.
* We make best use of technical expertise and engineering resource.
* We support the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) objectives
3. Today's announcement relates to the Environment Agency's strategic overview role for sea flooding and coastal erosion; development of the Agency's role in relation to inland flooding is being pursued separately.
4. Sea flooding roles on the coast are currently mixed between the Environment Agency and 92 coastal local authorities. The Environment Agency leads in most areas but local authorities take the lead in other places such as North West England. In future the Environment Agency will manage of all sea flooding risk but it will, where appropriate, continue to work with local authorities in delivering works on the ground. Local authorities will continue to promote coastal erosion works projects but these will be under the Agency's strategic overview. This approach will ensure much clearer accountabilities for sea flooding and coastal erosion and the Environment Agency will produce new coastal maps which show which organisation is responsible for delivering the service on each stretch of coast.
5. The Environment Agency will manage and fund the programme for producing long term (up to 100 year) Shoreline Management Plans (SMPs) for the whole English coastline. While the plans will be undertaken by the organisation (Environment Agency or local authority) best placed to do so, the Environment Agency will ensure that they are produced to a consistently high standard and are truly sustainable.
6. Flood and coastal erosion works will be identified from the SMPs and feed into a national assessment of flood and erosion risk and a resulting prioritised multi-year works programme. New outcome measures have been developed by Defra to help assess relative priorities within the works programme.
7. Defra will allocate funding to the Environment Agency to manage the flood and coastal erosion works programme. In doing so, the Agency will ensure that all work, whether undertaken by themselves or local authorities, is properly and efficiently procured and delivered. The Agency will also ensure that robust arrangements are in place for the long term management and maintenance of the asset that is created, so that its lifetime benefits are fully realised and premature capital replacement is not necessary.
8. The Environment Agency will take on Defra's role in approving all new coastal erosion works planned by local authorities, whether or not grant is sought. We intend that the Agency will ensure that defences and works operated by others are consistent with the objectives of the Water Framework Directive, given that this includes the hydromorphology of the coastline.
9. The role and membership of Regional Flood Defence Committees will be widened to include coastal erosion. This will ensure that the Environment Agency's decisions and activity in relation to coastal erosion are brought within the same governance framework as applies to flood risk management.
10. The present coastal groups of local authorities would continue under these arrangements though Defra wants to work with them in producing fewer, bigger and more strategic organisations with consistently strong Environment Agency membership as well as representation from other key stakeholders. Such a development of the coastal groups was suggested by the chairs of these groups in an earlier stage of development of the Environment Agency strategic overview role.
11. Defra will produce a detailed implementation plan by as soon as possible. Wherever possible changes will be made by administrative action, including by delegating current Defra responsibilities to the Environment Agency or by amending existing guidance (eg for Shoreline Management Plans). Where changes to primary legislation are necessary Defra will be investigating the mechanisms for doing so.
12. Regarding resistance and resilience grants, Ian Pearson announced the intention to run a series of pilot studies on 15 May (Defra news release 133/07). Grants of up to £5000 will be awarded to property owners to install devices or other measures to keep out flood waters or to reduce the damage caused by water entering the house. The sites initially selected for these pilots are:
* Uckfield, East Sussex
* Bleasby, Nottingham
*
Sunderland Point, Morecambe, Lancs
* Sandside,
Kirkby-in-Furness, Cumbria
* The Sands, Appleby, Cumbria
13. A total of 172 properties will potentially benefit from these measures with a total estimated cost of £400,000. Further sites, suggested by other organisations, will be considered shortly with potential further expenditure of up to £100,000. In selecting the sites Defra has looked at providing protection to a range of different property types against different forms of flooding. We will also test different approaches to delivery. The experience from these pilots, and a research project running in parallel, will help inform a future decision on whether grants to improve the resistance and resilience of individual properties should be included in our long term approach to flood risk reduction.
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