Agenda item

The Chairman welcomed Alison Baptiste from the Environment Agency and Jonathan Moxon from Leeds City Council who attended as guest speakers and delivered their presentations on the current situation and the future of flooding. These presentations followed a request from the Board when they indicated that it would be useful to discuss flooding at a time which would enable the development of a longer term strategic approach.

Sonika Sidhu, Senior Adviser, introduced the report and explained that the Government committed to investing £2.5 billion in capital funding for flood defences

for the period 2015-16 to 2020-21 and that the majority of the funding for flood and coastal erosion management is through grants from DEFRA to the Environment Agency. In addition, The Chancellor announced in the Autumn Budget 2017 that an additional £76 million will be spent on flood and coastal defence schemes over the next three years.

Sonika explained the LGA’s current lobbying position on flooding: the key issue being capital and revenue funding for flood defence projects to be devolved into a single, place-based pot to allow local areas to support a more diverse set of outcomes. Sonika informed the Board that DEFRA will shortly be undertaking a review to look at how flood defence funding is structured post-2021. We are lobbying for local government to be a key stakeholder in this review.

Discussion

In the discussion which followed, these points were made:

·         Members noted that local authorities are clearly encouraged to get third party contributions for flood defences, yet this is a real challenge. They requested instances where funding from the private sector for flood defence has been acquired to be shared with the Board.

·         Members agreed that after the ‘blue light services’ have left it is then the local authority’s responsibility to deal with the aftermath on communities for years to come. Members suggested linking this to the Board’s economy portfolio with the risk of companies/businesses simply moving from flood-risk areas.

·         Members highlighted the effectiveness of local authority allotment and front garden schemes for managing water, especially in urban environments. The Board requested officers to share some best practice evidence of this.

Decision

The members of the Environment, Economy, Housing and Transport Board gave direction for LGA engagement with government on future flooding policy and flooding. The Board also reconfirmed the LGA’s flooding position.