Future investment in flood defences will require greater contributions from communities and businesses, Environment Agency Chief Executive Dr Paul Leinster will say in a speech today.

Speaking at the Defra/Environment Agency Flood and Coastal Risk Management conference in Telford, Dr Leinster will say that local contributions to the funding of flood defences will have to play a greater role in reducing the risk of flood and coastal erosion. His comments echo calls made by Sir Michael Pitt in his independent review of the summer 2007 floods.

Environment Agency spending on flood and coastal risk management is currently at record levels (£629m for 2010-11). However, other sources of funding will need to be found to protect communities from increasing risk of flooding and coastal erosion including from changes in climate in future.

Some communities have already adopted this approach and, with the assistance of the Environment Agency and Defra, increased levels of protection against flooding and coastal erosion. These include:

• Hereford (Midlands region): Asda contributed £2m as part of the planning conditions for a supermarket in the town, in addition to constructing 440m of flood defence. The total cost of the scheme was £7.5m and it provides protection to 196 properties including 25 listed buildings.
• East Hanney (Thames region): Volunteers cleared weeds from a local brook, increasing the brook’s capacity, and also constructed a flood defence bank and footpath. The Environment Agency provided soil, the hire of two mini-excavators and two dump trucks. The local authority paid for coir rolls used to help stabilise the new bank.
• Bawdsey (Anglian region): In 2007 a group of local landowners and residents formed the East Lane Trust to raise £2.2m to implement a coastal protection and flood defence scheme for a 250m section of coast. The money was raised by selling plots of land in nearby villages. In 2007, the government granted special permission to allow 26 homes to be built on the plots which were not previously available for residential development. The money raised was given to the District Council to commission a sustainable coast protection scheme which was completed in summer 2009.

Dr Paul Leinster said:

“The Environment Agency has been given £629m by Defra to reduce flood and coastal risk this year, £21m more than last year. We are on track to reduce flood risk to 160,000 properties in England between April 2008 and March 2011 – exceeding our Government target for the period by 15,000.

“Whilst continued government investment in managing the risk of flooding is important, we must now also look at alternative funding streams, including increased contributions from those who will benefit from future defence schemes.”

Examples of Alternative Sources of Funding

Community self-help

Appleby:
This scheme (and another in Sandside, South Lakeland) was jointly conceived and administrated by the Environment Agency and Eden District Council (South Lakeland District council for Sandside).
It formed part of the national Defra £500k Pilot Flood Resilience project where local authorities and the Environment Agency were encouraged to work together in different ways to promote a resilience scheme. £90k and £80k of grant money was received by Eden and South Lakeland Councils respectively, directly from Defra. This arrangement meant that the Councils could use their grant distribution powers to fund individual property protection schemes.
The level of grant was apportioned on property threshold level and a higher amount of grant was available to residential properties than commercial.
The average amount of grant issued to the 46 properties that took part was approximately £1300. The property owners were expected to fund any work in excess of the grant available for their particular property. It was noticeable that this level of private excess funding was greater in the relatively more affluent location of Sandside.
Approximately 26 of the properties that took part in the Appleby scheme benefited from their defences in the November 2009 flooding. They would have flooded if their resilience scheme funded defences had not been in place.

Local contributions

East Lane, Bawdsey Coastal Protection
In 1997 a major storm led to the already vulnerable coastline at East Lane, Bawdsey in Suffolk to erode severely. This retreating coastline posed an immediate threat to three coastal properties, including a Grade I listed Martello Tower. Due to insufficient priority, Suffolk Coastal District Council struggled to justify grant aid to fund a complete scheme at East Lane. This led to a series of emergency works along the District Council and Environment Agency frontages to limit the damage caused primarily from winter storms.

In 2007 a group of local landowners and residents formed East Lane Trust, a “not-for-profit” charitable organisation to raise £2.2m to implement a coastal protection and flood defence scheme for the 250m section of coast. The money was raised by selling plots of land in nearby villages. In 2007, the government granted special permission to allow 26 homes to be built on the plots which were not in the Local Plan as being available for residential development. The money raised was given to the District Council to commission a sustainable coast protection scheme which was completed in summer 2009. It is thought to be the first privately funded coastal protection scheme since the enactment of the Coast Protection Act in 1949. The scheme highlights that, through effective co-operation between local communities and the responsible authorities, common goals can be achieved.

Additional examples:

Leeds City Flood Alleviation
The project will increase the level of protection to Leeds City centre but makes a relatively low contribution to reducing flood risk for households. However, the proposed project is likely to enable significant economic and financial benefits for the local and regional business, commercial and development/regeneration sectors. In line with our FCRM External Contributions policy, these benefits are sufficient to justify a contribution of at least £50m towards the £178m scheme’s total cost. Discussions, consultations and negotiations are on-going between the Environment Agency and the City Council on how this value of contribution can be realised to secure the proposed benefits to the city.

Press Release on the Environment Agency website

Rare reconnaissance photographs of the 1953 floods which engulfed large parts of East Anglia have come to light.

The pictures were shot by the RAF and, until recently, some of them were classified.

Watch the video clip on the BBC News website

AN innovative scheme to save a vulnerable stretch of coastline from the ravages of the sea is now complete – and just in the nick of time if this latest photograph is anything to go by.

Work to protect the cliffs, Martello Tower and two homes in East Lane, Bawdsey, near Woodbridge, has finally finished following years of uncertainty.

Campaigners feared the coastline would be swept away and large areas of low lying farmland would be flooded if nothing was done.

But the defence scheme was low on a list of national priorities and the Government said it could not pay for any work.

As result the East Lane Trust (ELT) was formed and the group came up with a ground breaking community project to raise the vital funds.

Suffolk Coastal District Council granted permission for 26 new homes to be built on land at Bawdsey, Alderton and Hollesley and those sites were then marketed to potential developers.

The money generated through their sale was used by the local authority – which had to break planning policy to allow houses on land normally safeguarded for development – to pay for the improvements.

The land at Bawdsey and Alderton has been sold and negotiations are still underway for the site at Hollesley.

But the project – which has cost in the region of £2.4million – is now complete, much to the delight of all those involved.

Gerry Matthews, developer of the East Lane Trust initiative, said: “I’m very pleased. I think the Martello Tower and one of the cottages would have to have been demolished so it’s very timely.

“It is the culmination of a lot of hard work and effort. The reality of the situation united the three parishes. We all worked hard to produce a local answer to the funding gap.”

John Fell-Clark, owner of the Martello Tower, said: “I’ve spent 12 years campaigning – it’s a great moment. Its terrific news and a culmination of a tremendous effort by everyone involved. It really has come just in the nick of time.

“It’s been a huge battle, not just in terms of funding but with all the other issues we’ve had to sort out as well. For example work should have started in October but the ship carrying the rocks sank.

“I’m ecstatic that after all these years the defences are complete. The tower and other properties are now safe for the foreseeable future.”

The scheme has been praised at a national level and Andy Smith, Suffolk Coastal cabinet member for coastal management, was recently invited in front of the House of Commons Select Committee.

“It was a very proactive and innovative approach to the planning side and got the job done,” he said. “There can have been few other examples of such close effective and productive joint working between the community and the statutory bodies.

“At a national level it’s been recognised as quite significant. It’s being looked at quite seriously as a way of getting things done in the future.”

Story by Criag Robinson in the East Anglian Daily Times

CONSULTANTS are to be appointed to draw up the detailed proposals for the next multi-million pound sea defence scheme to protect homes at Felixstowe from the sea.

Experts say 525 homes, 99 businesses, the prom, Spa Pavilion and its historic gardens, a coast road and the resort’s main sewer could be at risk of being washed away.
Five listed buildings, including Harvest House and South Beach Mansion, are also under threat.

Work costing £10 million was carried out this summer to protect the low-lying area from the pier to the Manor, and community leaders say they need to get on with the next stage as soon as possible.

This will be from Jacob’s Ladder – stone steps from the cliffs to the beach at Old Felixstowe – to the War Memorial.

The biggest problem is around Cobbold’s Point, where a previous scheme to create a wishbone reef has not been as effective as hoped.

Suffolk Coastal cabinet member Andy Smith said the area to be protected was a key part of the resort and its future was critical to the regeneration of the town – potential losses to the tourist economy were estimated at up to £132m over the next century.

About £80,000 was spent last year and early this year to underpin groynes near the Town Hall and stop the loss of beach.

“However, other groynes continue to deteriorate with a consequent reduction in beach level threatening to undermine the seawall, as happened in south Felixstowe in May 2006,” he said.

“The most immediate threat currently is at Cobbold’s Point and to the immediate south, in the vicinity of The Fludyers public house.”

“Not investing in new defences at central Felixstowe in a timely manner will lead to increased maintenance costs as ageing defences deteriorate and become ineffective.”

The project will involve construction of new groynes plus beach replenishment along the Spa Gardens and Undercliff Road sections, and modifications to the Cobbold’s Point defences.

At a later date, Undercliff Road East would have a set-back wall to hold back rising sea levels.

Next step will be an appraisal report by consultants, seeking tenders and the public’s views.

——————-
SEA defence work to protect one of the most vulnerable parts of Suffolk’s coastline is suffering delays because a barge delivering rock had an accident.

The Stema 2 was bringing 22,000 tonnes of rock to be used off East Lane at Bawdsey.

Work started two months ago on the scheme to protect a Martello Tower and two homes, and eroding cliffs which if lost would lead to large areas of low-lying land in Bawdsey, Alderton and Hollesley being flooded.

The rock-laden barge left Norway safely but then ran aground off the Dutch coast.

It has left contractors without enough rock to finish the new defences and residents worried about the impact of winter storms.

The defences were low on the list of priorities for national funding and have only been able to go ahead thanks to an innovative community partnership which raised the money by gaining permission to use farmland to build homes on three nearby sites.

Story in the Ipswich Evening Star

AREAS of the Suffolk coast will not be abandoned “unless it is absolutely necessary”, the chairman of the Environment Agency said yesterday as he held a series of meetings with groups concerned at plans to stop maintaining some of the estuary defences.

Lord Smith, who was flown by helicopter up the coast from Bawdsey to Easton Bavents, said he wanted the agency to work with local communities to identify the best solutions and find funding from a variety of possible sources.

“We want to make sure we protect as much as possible. We need to agree solutions for each individual estuary. I certainly don’t want to abandon anything unless we absolutely have to,” he said.

Lord Smith arrived at Felixstowe by car and was taken across the Deben by boat to meet members of Suffolk Coast Against Retreat.

He later visited East Lane, Bawdsey, where new sea defence work is scheduled to get under way soon – part-financed by the proceeds from the sale of “greenfield” land for housing development – before boarding a helicopter for a flight along the coast and a meeting in Southwold with the Blyth Strategy Group and the Blyth Estuary Group.

Campaigners urged him to find more money to help to “hold the line” along the cost for at least the next 20 years to enable more knowledge about coastal trends and climate change to be accumulated.

They also urged him to help relax some of the restrictions which make it difficult for landowners and local authorities to get together to undertake local public-private schemes.

Lord Smith said the national flood defence budget would be rising over the next couple of years from £600million to £800million.

“We obviously have to look at the needs of the whole of England and Wales but Suffolk is a very important part of that and we will try to make sure we deploy the funds we have available for Suffolk as best as we possibly can,” he said.

Lord Smith said there was certainly a case for looking at ways to help communities take action themselves. “However, I don’t think we can tear up all the planning laws and I don’t think we can remove some of the important environmental protections which are in place. But what we can do is try to work with the grain rather than against it,” he said.

“I very much want to see the Environment Agency working with local communities, not coming in with pre-conceived ideas but sitting down with people to talk seriously about what the options are and how we can go forward and provide the best possible protection for people.

“I want to do our very level best to protect as much as we possibly can. How we can do that has be the burden of conversation over ht next few years.

“There is some money available but there will never be the amount of money I would like to have at our disposal. So we also need to explore ways how we can tap into other sources as well. That might come from developers, other public sources and private contributions. Let’s see how we can put together the funding that might make things possible,” he added.

Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer, who was involved in yesterday’s talks, said he hoped Lord Smith would act in a way which would not portray the agency as an arm of government but as an independent assessor.

“He clearly understands the issues and I have high hopes. We’ll do what we can do locally and but in the end we’ve got to get sufficient money from the Government to protect the coastline of England,” he said.

Story by David Green in the East Anglian Daily Times

SEA defence campaigners will today urge top decision-makers to help remove legal barriers to enable public-private partnerships to “hold the line” on the Suffolk coast for at least the next 20 years.

Lord Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, is due to see the eroding coastline and meet groups which are opposing the agency’s plans to phase out the maintenance of flood walls in Suffolk’s estuaries.

The agency – working within updated guidelines issued by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – believes the work would not be sustainable and cannot be justified, economically or environmentally, especially in the face of rising sea levels.

However, campaigners will today call on Lord Smith to help local authorities and landowners to “hold the line” for the next 20 years to allow more knowledge to be developed about coastal trends.

In particular they want them to help remove legal barriers which may prevent landowners raising existing earth walls to the height agreed following the disastrous east coast floods of 1953. Many of the walls have slumped or become undermined due to lack of maintenance.

Campaigners want local authorities and landowners to have the unhindered freedom to create public-private partnerships to carry out sea defence work in some vulnerable areas.

Lord Smith, whose visit has been arranged by Suffolk Coast Against Retreat (SCAR), set up two years ago with the help of Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer, will travel by helicopter from Bawdsey along the coast as far as Easton Bavents where a DIY sea defence scheme financed by landowner Peter Boggis was halted by Natural England, the Government’s countryside and conservation agency.

SCAR chairman, Graham Henderson, who is co-ordinating today’s visit, said last night: “Our fundamental message to Lord Smith will be that we want to hold the line in the medium term – over the next 20 years – to allow more knowledge to be developed. In that time we want to see the walls maintained.”

Mr Henderson said public-private partnerships could be the way forward with local authorities and landowners providing the finance for schemes.

“While extra money from the government would be welcome, we can’t see that happening in the present economic climate but we need help from Defra and the Environment Agency in removing the legal barriers to carry out schemes.

“We appear to have a problem in raising sea defence walls to the heights specified following the 1953 floods – currently it cannot be done without the approval of the Environment Agency and Natural England and without planning permission.

“We want them to help us rather than put barriers in the way. We are not saying this should be done willy-nilly but we want more help to get through the legalities.”

Mr Henderson revealed that talks about this issue – involving the Environment Agency, Natural England, the NFU and the Country Land and Business Association – had been taking place and the next one was scheduled for November.

“Since we responded to the agency’s flood defence plans we feel we have been listened to – that is exemplified by the way the eastern area flood defence committee has not accepted the Blyth strategy. But it has to be a two-way process,” he added.

Lord Smith is due to arrive at Felixstowe by car and to take the ferry across the Deben to the café at Bawdsey where he will have a private meeting with members of SCAR.

He will then visit East Lane, Bawdsey where a public-private partnership is behind a project which will see “greenfield land sold for housing development and the £2.5 million proceeds of the sale used to defend a stretch of coast which includes a Martello tower.

Lord Smith will return to Bawdsey for lunch before boarding a helicopter and viewing the coastal defences en route to Southwold, where he is due to have a private meeting with members of the local authority-run Blyth Strategy Group and the local campaign organisation, the Blyth Estuary Group.

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “The sustainable management of the coast requires a strategic approach and a regulatory framework within which sea defences can be built and maintained to ensure that legal obligations are met.

“We believe that the current arrangements provide protection of the public interest and would not wish to see a relaxation that could jeopardise community and environmental interests. The current consenting regime and consultation process is in place to make sure that building of defences takes into account the interest of the wider community.”

Story by David Green in the East Anglian Daily Times

The unique partnership that came together to provide much-needed coastal defence works around East Lane, Bawdsey is celebrating the news that work should get underway this month.

Because the defence works were low on the list of priorities for national funding, an innovative community partnership was created which has helped raise the money by building homes on three nearby sites.

“Suffolk Coastal has now received the necessary funds from the East Lane Trust (ELT) for the coastal defence works to proceed, which together with the unexpected and hence doubly welcome contingency commitment from the Environment Agency, means that the contracts for the work can be signed,” said Cllr Andy Smith, Cabinet Member for Coastal Management.

“I want to pay tribute to all those involved, not least Gerry Matthews of the ELT and all the other members of the Trust particularly the landowners who helped make it all possible, for the most amazing community vision and courage.

“I am proud of the role that Suffolk Coastal has been able to play in this project. There can have been few ever examples of such close, effective and productive joint working between the community and the statutory bodies as this project, and it has been a privilege to be associated with it,” added Cllr Smith.

A series of emergency works worth nearly £250,000 have been funded by Suffolk Coastal over recent years. Further emergency coastal defences were put in place during the 2007 winter to help protect Bawdsey’s East Lane cliffs. Suffolk Coastal District Council worked closely with the local community and the Environment Agency to help shore up an area that suffered some of the most dramatic impacts of coastal erosion over the last few years.

The assets most obviously risk of further erosion at East Lane are a Martello Tower and two adjacent homes, but the loss of the cliffs would also have seen a serious flood threat to large areas of low-lying land in Bawdsey, Alderton and Hollesley. The Shoreline Management Plan recognises the importance of this stretch of the coast.

“The reality of the situation united the three parishes. We all worked hard to produce a local answer to the funding gap caused because there is not enough money set aside nationally for coastal defence work,” said Gerry Matthews of the East Lane Trust.

“The Trust came up with its own imaginative way of locally funding the cost of the permanent defence works, by selling housing development land, for which we had to get the backing of both Suffolk Coastal and then the Government.

“These were exceptional circumstances and we have delivered a unique local solution which will deliver the vital coastal protection for East Lane and beyond. I would thank everyone who has been involved in our partnership, and I look forward in a few weeks to being able to celebrate the start of the work,” added Mr Matthews.

The contract for the project has been awarded by Suffolk Coastal to Dean and Dyball Construction Ltd, and work is expected to start on site on Monday, September 29.

From a press release on the Suffolk Coastal District Council website