Minutes:
Question
The agenda states that and I quote "During the financial year 2020/21, the Flooding and Drainage team made further progress in fulfilling Wokingham Borough Council’s (WBC) statutory obligations as Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) under the Flood and Water Management Act (FWMA) 2010. The primary responsibility as an LLFA is to manage the coordination of surface water and groundwater flood risk in order to protect residents from flooding"
My question is does surface and Ground water risk include reservoirs and Dams or Not or is that a different water that residents do not need protecting from?
Answer
The Lead Local Flood Authority is responsible for coordinating the response to surface water and groundwater flood risk. The Environment Agency is responsible for overseeing the management of reservoir flooding and for the management and implementation of reservoir safety regulations in England. They are also responsible for coordinating the management of fluvial (river) flooding. In regards to reservoirs and specifically dams etcetera as well, that actually comes under a separate act of parliament – the Reservoirs Act 1075, in which reservoirs, with you being in Arborfield the principle reservoir that you are probably asking about would be the ones in Bearwood Lakes, which are covered under that act. Essentially, it is the responsibility of the land owner to conduct a 10 year structural risk assessment under the Reservoirs Act, and then coordinate with the Local Authority as to any planning that needs to be done in order to mitigate any risk. I think that Bearwood is coming up in 2024 or 2025, and the reason why I know this is whilst I was on Earley Town Council we did research into the Maiden Erlegh Reservoir Lake, and that report was done a few years back.
Supplementary Question
You have studied the subject very well, well done. The problem I’ve got with it is, and I agree with pretty much everything that you say, is that although the Environment Agency might have dam responsibilities, we have a responsibility to our residents. The Council has granted planning permission to build 18 houses directly under the flood burst zone, and so there has to be a link between the Council having responsibility in planning terms and the local flood risk as the local flood authority. The question is although the Council never informed the Environment Agency of this planning application, there is a very grey area where planning applications turn up, so how does our planning and flood risk fit in with this broad principle? I don’t expect an answer now as it is fairly comprehensive.
Supplementary Answer
Indeed Gary, I may need to look to Francesca to take a stab at this. I agree with Gary that this is a grey area, and what makes it ‘greyer’ is that the ownership of the lakes has transferred as I believe that Reading Football Club now owns it.
The planning application, the Environment Agency were consulted on and we would expect them to comment on fluvial and reservoir flooding. So they were consulted on the planning application and if they had any concerns about reservoir flooding they would have commented as such. But, the Environment Agency, as Guy has already said, is responsible for reservoir safety regulations and so they are responsible for making sure that the reservoir owners or regulators are ensuring that they have done all of the works necessary to make sure that they are safe so that they won’t breach and then cause flooding. The main point is that it really is a responsibility for the Environment Agency, and in relation to that planning application the Environment Agency were consulted.
At this point, some further discussions were had about this topic.