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

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