The Flood and Water Management Bill was published on the 19th November 2009 and laid in parliament. 

The Flood and Water Management Bill gained Royal Assent on the 8 April 2010.

The Act will implement several key recommendations of Sir Michael Pitt’s Review of the Summer 2007 floods, protect water supplies to consumers and protect community groups from excessive charges for surface water drainage.

The Act’s provisions include:

• New statutory responsibilities for managing flood risk – There will be national strategies and guidance on managing flood risk in England and Wales. Unitary and county councils will bring together the relevant bodies, who will have a duty to cooperate, to develop local strategies for managing local flood risk.
• Protection of assets which help manage flood risk – The Environment Agency, local authorities and internal drainage boards will be able to ensure that private assets which help manage the risks of floods cannot be altered without consent. For example, putting a gate in a wall that is helping protect an area could increase the risk of flooding.
• Powers to carry out environmental works – the Environment Agency, local authorities and internal drainage boards will be able to manage water levels to deliver leisure, habitat and other environmental benefits.
• Sustainable drainage – drainage systems for all new developments will need to be in line with new National Standards to help manage and reduce the flow of surface water into the sewerage system.
• New sewer standards – all sewers will be built to agreed standards in future so that they are adopted and maintained by the relevant sewerage company.
• Reservoir safety – the public will be protected by a new risk-based regime for reservoir safety. It will reduce the burden on regulated reservoirs where people are not at risk, but introduce regulation for some potentially risky reservoirs currently outside of the system.
• Water company charges – there will be protection against unaffordable charges for surface water drainage for community groups such as churches, scouts and others. Future water company charges can include social tariffs for those who would otherwise face difficulty meeting their bills.
• Protection of water supplies – there will be wider powers for water companies to control non-essential domestic uses of water in times of drought.
• Other protection for water company customers – there will be new powers to reduce the level of bad debt, new arrangements for managing very risky infrastructure projects which could be a threat to the ability of the water company to provide its services, and updated arrangements for administration of water companies should they get into difficulties.

The Flood Risk Regulations 2009 have now come into force. Its purpose is to transpose the EC Floods Directive (Directive 2007/60/EC on the assessment and management of flood risks) into domestic law and to implement its provisions. In particular, it places duties on the Environment Agency and local authorities to prepare flood risk assessments, flood risk maps and flood risk management plans.

It was previously intended to transpose the EC Floods Directive through the Flood and Management Water Bill but, these regulations are consistent with the Bill and provide a more pragmatic way forward for the timely transposition of the directive.

The intention is to consolidate the transposing regulations with the relevant provisions from the Flood and Water Management Bill and appropriate existing legislation as soon as possible. This would achieve a single coherent set of provisions dealing with flood risk assessment and management. Click here to find our more.

The RTPI responded to the Defra consultation on the Flood and Water Management Bill in July 2009. You can download our response here.

Command Paper Taking forward the draft Flood and Water Management Bill: The Government response to pre-legislative scrutiny and public consultation.

Author:

Rebecca Coates

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

21-Apr-10

Categories:

Planning / Planning Resources, Policy, Practice 

Sections:

News & Media

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