Wait for it, it’s the Water Bill 2010
By Jim Allen | E&M West Ltd | www.eandmwest.co.uk
And yet here we are rushing towards 2012 with alarming rapidity. Remember the disastrous floods that overwhelmed parts of the South West in 2007, and Cumbria in 2009? As I write the rain is lashing the north again, last month it was Mevagissey, bringing back memories of Boscastle, shrinking the distance of time. Flooding is a direct cause of human misery, dislocation on a local and national scale, with a heavy cost directly to individuals, their insurers and the country as a whole.
The Pitt review in 2008 led directly to The Flood and Water Management Act 2010. This seeks to make management of flood risk a pro-active, rather than a reactive mopping up exercise. Local authorities are key to the brave new world it seeks to create, looking up towards the Environment Agency for a strategic framework, and outwards to drainage boards, water companies and the design community to create, implement and manage solutions on the ground. Management of surface water is the issue, and the adoption of sustainable drainage systems the key component.
All well and good, but over 3 years on from Pitt almost none of this is in place, and the current framework for enactment will not complete until the very end of 2014, over 3 years hence. So why the delay?
The Bill will impact on planning processes, with sustainable drainage solutions a requirement for all but the very smallest schemes. This at a time when one of the coalition’s much vaunted strategies for recovery is the abolition of red tape and reform of the planning processes.
Local authorities are the key to successful implementation, and while they have skilled engineers they are too few in number, and not always trained in the design of sustainable drainage schemes. Yet they are charged with establishing Sustainable Drainage Boards to sanction development and management of schemes and other assets post construction. They are not ready.
On the other side of the fence, sustainable drainage schemes, done well, use space that could be used to raise scheme density and payback for developers on their expensively acquired land-banks. Compliance will generate upfront costs and potentially delays. Government is desperately keen to raise new housing starts, and is looking at ways to incentivise rather than discourage development.
Perhaps no surprise then that implementation is so slow, although so far no one seems to be admitting to any dragging of the feet.
The design community must put the counter arguments as strongly as we can. We have a golden opportunity to use good design to improve amenity and biodiversity to the benefit of the wider community. Permeable paving has its place, but it’s not paving paradise. The existing system is broken, and is full of inconsistencies and hard to reconcile interests. Reform is essential if we are to move forward and make the right kind of investment, saving costs to the wider economy in future years.
The politicians would do well to remember the misery flooding creates. It’s twice this year residents in Mevagissey have mopped out their homes; they may not know much about the Water Bill 2010 but they will surely want to know why this is happening again.
