Venue: LB 31-32 - Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham, NG2 3NG. View directions
Contact: Rav Kalsi Senior Governance Officer
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APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Minutes: Councillor Georgina Culley – Non Council business Councillor Pat Ferguson – Other Council business Councillor Brian Parbutt –Non Council business Councillor Mohammed Saghir – Other Council business Councillor Marcia Watson – Other Council business Beverly Denby – Other Council business |
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DECLARATIONS OF INTERESTS Minutes: None. |
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To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 7 January 2015 Minutes: The minutes of the meeting held on 7 January 2015 were confirmed and signed by the chair. |
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NOTTINGHAM LOCAL FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGY PDF 162 KB Report of the Head of Democratic Services Additional documents:
Minutes: Fay Bull, Flood Mitigation Manager at Nottingham City Council, delivered a presentation on the Nottingham Local Flood Risk Management Strategy (NLFRMS).
In the presentation the following points were highlighted:
(a)
Nottingham City Council (NCC) is a Lead Local Flood Authority
(LLFA) under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, and has a
statutory duty to develop, maintain, apply and monitor a strategy
for local flood risk management; (b)
in Nottingham there are many
organisations that deal with water management. The principal
partners are NCC (surface water, ground water and minor
watercourses), the Environment Agency (EA) (larger watercourses
such as the rivers Trent and Leen),
Severn Trent Water (STW) (sewers) and the Canal and River Trust
(canals). These agencies all work in partnership and meet
quarterly; (c)
the NLFRMS aims not to repeat the many
existing national policies on flooding but to provide a clear plan
for appropriate flood risk prevention. Data such as GIS
information, historical flood records and data from the EA is used
to determine the areas that are most at risk from
flooding; (d)
17 priority areas have been identified within the NLFRMS, including
Top Valley Way in Bulwell Forest,
Mansfield Road in Mapperley, Sherwood
and Berridge wards. The Strategy
proposes a range of measures aimed at mitigating flood risk in the
city referencing organisations’ involvement and an estimated
cost of risk management; (e)
the 7 primary objectives of the NLFRMS are: · work collaboratively with partners; · sustainable new developments; · economically sustainable activities; · community engagement & engagement; · multiple benefits (such as enhancing infrastructure or promoting biodiversity); · catchment based approach; ·
local flood risk information. (f)
NCC has a statutory duty to ensure that any new development is
appropriate in terms of avoiding flood risk
sustainably. It also maintains drainage
and cleans gullies, as well as engaging with communities through a
targeted communication strategy; (g)
NCC aims to improve the resilience of existing properties within
the city by supplying low-cost flood-prevention measures to
citizens at competitive rates, such as aqua-sacs and groundwater
level indicators; (h)
the action plan contained within the
NLFRMS contains a list of proposed capital schemes, which are all
subject to funding. Bids have been submitted to central government
to fund all of these. Each scheme will also require partnership
funding from other sources, the amount of which will vary from
scheme to scheme; (i)
the River Leen and Day Brook schemes are future schemes which
may be looked at in conjunction with prospective developers. There
are further locations where other schemes may be considered,
however may be more difficult and expensive to complete in the
short-term. Citizens and businesses in these areas can be aided for
now through community engagement; (j)
a public consultation has been
undertaken which was a statutory duty for NCC, as well as further
consultation with stakeholders and the Local Resilience Forum.
Additionally, an article was published in the Nottingham Arrow,
vulnerable citizens were directly mailed, and further consultation
in libraries, leisure centres and with community groups and Area
Committee chairs was carried out. 33 responses were received, the
outcomes of which were that a succinct action plan was important,
all 7 objectives were essential, the NLFRMS was easy to understand,
and the responsibilities of different agencies were
clear; (k) the next steps for the NLFRMS, following feedback from the Overview & Scrutiny Committee, will be agreement at Executive Board in February 2015 and then at Full Council in March 2015.
Fay Bull, Adam Boucher, Chris Capewell and Andrew Disney responded to members’ questions as follows:
(l)
highways repairs to manhole covers etc.
are undertaken jointly between the highways department of NCC and
STW. Where a problem is found, a Section 81 Notice can be served
and STW must liaise with the highways department within 2 hours to
investigate the work that needs to be undertaken. Pipes or sewers
that are most at risk are monitored by CCTV and there is also a
regular programme of monitoring for each area; (m)the
EA is a statutory consultee on all
planning applications, and if a new development were to demonstrate
a high risk of flooding they would be likely to object. The EA also
promotes sustainable drainage solutions such as ponds, swales and
wetland around new developments. Surface water is the
responsibility of NCC and they will also become a statutory
consultee from 6 April 2015 to make
sure flooding is avoided, and also to promote sustainable drainage
solutions; (n)
some areas do not come under the remit of the NLFRMS as they are on
larger rivers such as the River Leen
and so would be the responsibility of the EA. In these areas much
wider investigation would be needed as schemes on one part of a
river may have an impact further upstream or downstream. As a result these types of scheme can
cost many millions of pounds. Cheaper solutions can sometimes be
found such as raising buildings on stilts but these may be more
expensive for potential developers; (o)
removal of the culverts along the River
Leen would be desirable as this would
help return the river to a more natural state, as preferred by the
European Water Framework Directive. These improvements would be
within the remit of the EA and NCC would be in support; (p)
further work is required to increase the
number of consultees to the Strategy
document. Information will be made clearer on the City Council
website and community engagement meetings with the EA can be set up
to reassure citizens, particularly in areas where they have had
difficulty setting these up previously; (q)
drainage from the new housing
development of 300 new houses in the Rushcliffe area will feed into
the water systems of Clifton, but the EA has been consulted and a
series of ponds have been proposed to promote sustainable drainage.
This could even be an opportunity to improve the current drainage
systems; (r)
flood defences along the river Trent in
Wilford vary in height as they were
constructed at different times but the EA always runs tests and
they are all within tolerance levels. All culverts are also given
routine maintenance and kept within tolerance levels; (s)
none of the major flood management
partners (NCFC, STW, EA etc.) police each other but work in
partnership. As the LLFA, NCC has the responsibility to determine
which partner has responsibility for individual incidents or risks,
and this can sometimes be complex as different water systems affect
each other. Although STW is policed by a regulator, NCC is
regulated by the Secretary of State and elected members, such as
those on the Overview and Scrutiny Committee; (t)
prevention is always the preferred
option to repair. To help with this, STW uses camera technology and
alarm sensors to monitor sewers and pipes, and to prevent blockages
and ‘fatbergs’. The EA uses flood risk management to
monitor any changes in risk, and promotes the use of sustainable
drainage as this is cheaper than building heavy infrastructure such
as flood walls; (u)
there has been an annual fall in funding
nationally for flood management, however more funding has recently
been made available which must be spent in 6 year programmes. £170m is available for
the region of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire over
the next 6 years. This funding model is difficult to compare to the
old funding system given that funding is no longer fixed over a
single year period, however it still represents a substantial
amount of money. Higher-risk areas are looked at first when
determining funding levels; (v)
STW are now penalised for every flood they cause which is helping
to promote more partnership working. Perceptions are also changing
as feedback shows that customers now consider all flooding,
including external flooding, to be the fault of STW; (w)data
can be ascertained by NCC to show recorded blockages at all highway
gullies and drains. STW can also provide data as they live-map all
blockages and repairs. This data can be provided to members of the
Committee at a future meeting; (x) unfortunately, it is not possible to provide a walkthrough of sewers as requested by some councillors, as there are no new major projects being constructed in the area soon. However, photographs can be provided and any future opportunities to do this will be communicated to Committee members.
RESOLVED to
(1)
thank Fay Bull, Adam Boucher, Chris Capewell and Andrew Disney for the presentation and
responses to questions, and to request a further meeting in 12
months to report on updates on Strategy objectives such as
community engagement and asset management; (2)
recommend that feedback from the Committee is used in
the submission to Executive Board and Full Council in February and
March 2015; (3)
recommend a list of useful contacts and
responsibilities of key agencies in flood risk management be
promoted; (4) recommend that all flood risk management partners should continue to meet and engage with members of the public and community groups where necessary, to give reassurance around flood risk. |
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PROGRAMME FOR SCRUTINY PDF 280 KB Report of the Head of Democratic Services Minutes: Rav Kalsi, Senior Governance Officer, introduced a report of the Head of Democratic Services setting out the overall programme and timetable for scrutiny activity during the remainder of 2014/15.
RESOLVED to
(1)
note the items scheduled on the work programme for the
Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Scrutiny Review Panels for
2014/15; (2) notify the Head of Democratic Services of topics for consideration during the workshop session scheduled for 4 March 2015. |