INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

  1.  Hesco Bastion welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to the Select Committee as part of its inquiry into flooding.

  2.  The submission covers four areas:

—  Background to Hesco Bastion

—  Our role and involvement in the emergency response to the July floods

—  Effective emergency response planning for the future

—  Planning for the longer term security of the country's critical infrastructure

ABOUT HESCO BASTION

  3.  Hesco Bastion Ltd (HBL) is a Leeds-based company, founded and owned by Jimi Heselden OBE. The company, which has been in operation since 1990, has three manufacturing sites in Yorkshire. It employs approximately 250 people in the UK and also has a small factory in Louisiana, USA. It has been involved in civil, peacekeeping, military, humanitarian and engineering projects for over a decade.

  4.  HBL manufactures a patented product known as the Hesco Concertainer® unit, developed to provide the optimum solution for a wide range of protective and structural requirements. The system was originally used in civil engineering and to combat coastal erosion but since then it has also been deployed in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan to build blast mitigation walls; to upgrade levees in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; in the construction of humanitarian shelters and most recently to protect vital utilities in Gloucestershire from further flood damage.

  5.  The Concertainer system consists of linked welded mesh cells lined with geo-textile. The units, which are flat-packed and transported to site on pallets, can be pulled out very easily in a matter of minutes to form a robust barrier in nine different sizes up to 7" high. The units are then machine-filled with aggregate to form a robust defence wall. Once the initial layer is built the wall can then be increased in height by the addition of further layers. This provides the ability to tailor the wall dimensions to what is required.

  6.  The principal effect of this innovation is the speed at which it can be installed. A typical wall of Concertainer units, equivalent to 1500 sandbags, can be erected and installed by two people using a standard front end loader in 20 minutes. A similar wall made with sandbags would take ten people around seven hours to build.

  7.  In an emergency situation, when there is a threat of flooding, it is essential to move swiftly to protect the key infrastructures that provide the community with critical support functions such as power, drinking water and health services.

THE JULY FLOODS

  8.  Hesco Bastion Ltd was approached to provide immediate defence by the emergency planners and utility companies to protect:

—  Walham Switching and Power Station, Gloucester

—  Mythe Water Treatment Plant, Tewkesbury

—  Castle Meads Sub Station, Gloucester

Walham Switching and Power Station, Gloucester

  9.  The National Grid facility, which provides up to half a million people with power, was flooded on Sunday 22nd July. A temporary installation was erected immediately but when a second flood warning was issued, Hesco Bastion was called in to assist the Royal Air Force and the Army with the installation of the Concertainer Unit. News footage showed flood waters just inches away from devastating the sub-station presenting a very real threat for National Grid.

  10.  The barrier—which was approximately 800 metres in length—was securely positioned in just 19 hours, averting a potential national disaster and ensuring that power remained on for local residents.

  11.  Traditional defence walls made of sandbags could have taken around one week to complete.

Mythe Water Treatment Plant

  12.  The treatment plant, owned by Severn Trent Water, was flooded on Saturday 21st July.

  13.  The facility had been off-line for one week with the result that 300,000 local residents had lost their normal supply of clean water Although the clean-up was progressing, the plant had a limited distribution of non-potable water and a second flood warning was issued. It was at this point that Hesco Bastion was contacted and asked to provide emergency flood protection.

  14.  The units were ordered at 18:00 on Friday 27th July and arrived on site at 21:30 on the same evening. Working with the Army and local companies, over a kilometre of flood defence barriers over a metre high were erected around the perimeter in just 27 hours. Traditional defence walls made of sandbags would have taken about two weeks longer to complete.

Castle Meads Sub Station, Gloucester

  16.  Owned by Central Networks (part of E.ON UK), the sub station supplies electricity to 48,000 homes.

  17.  It was flooded on Sunday 22nd July and temporary flood barriers were erected. Once the water levels had subsided, Hesco Bastion was called in to conduct a site survey. Although this facility was not under immediate threat of re-flooding, Hesco Bation provided approximately 300 metres of Concertainer units to provide a longer term flood defence system against future flooding.

  18.  The key benefits of Hesco Concertainer units compared to the use of sandbags are:

—  the provision of superior protection against flooding. The protective walls around the plant are far more robust than traditional sandbag walls—fewer joints mean less opportunity for the water to seep through and the linked structure provides an extremely stable barrier against the possibility of future flooding.

—  a much lower skill set is required for effective assembly of the units compared to the fairly high skill set required to build effective sandbag walls

—  the relative speed at which the barriers can be erected in an emergency

—  the ability to make structures which have been put in place for the longer term, more aesthetically pleasing by the use of foliage and planting to blend it into the environment

—  the additional benefit of anti-terrorist protection

  19.  Taking into consideration the intensive labour required to erect sandbag defence walls, the cost of Concertainer units are comparable.

EFFECTIVE EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLANNING

  20.  Fortunately, the secondary flooding did not materialise in either Gloucester or in Tewksbury.

  21.  However, the experience does demonstrate that in emergency situations and within a relatively short space of time, it is possible to put in place robust flood defences on a large scale to protect critical infrastructure. In Mythe for example, with less than 24 hours of planning and 24 hours of construction, a wall just over one metre high and just under 1 km long was erected.

  22.  Based on our recent experience in the UK and from other experiences around the world, we have identified the following as the significant factors which determine the effectiveness of an emergency response:

—  a detailed emergency plan in place which has been communicated, rehearsed, regularly reviewed and revised

—  the existence of a clear decision making process

—  a coherent project management team with clear lines of responsibility and the authority and ability to procure material in a timely manner

—  a supply chain in place

—  a technically competent and motivated team on site who understand the effect of success or failure

—  detailed, timely and accurate information on the likely timing and level of the flood being communicated to the team on site

—  availability and allocation of resources (people, priority access to the site and equipment)

  23.  Our experience is that while almost all critical infrastructure facilities have emergency procedures in place for a fire or a terrorist incident, it seems that no such procedures exist for flooding. Similarly, while critical facilities are generally acutely aware of the risk posed to them by fire or terrorism, it is rare for a risk assessment to have been made on flooding. Although the recent floods and the associated media coverage have raised levels of awareness of this, there is still much work to be done in educating and informing people, businesses and organisations on the risks and threats of flooding and the prevention options that are available.

Planning for the longer term security of the country's critical infrastructure

  24.  Working with the utility companies, emergency planners and the Armed Forces, and as long as the necessary capacity and resources are available, Hesco Bastion can help to provide an effective emergency response. However, there is obviously a limit as to how many facilities can be supplied and protected under an emergency scenario.

  25.  A much more desirable position is one where the country's critical infrastructure is not solely dependent on an effective emergency response, but rather reasonable steps have been taken in advance to protect key sites from flooding.

  26.  Such an outcome might be achieved for example by the following approach:

—  identify critical infrastructure at risk of flooding

—  issue flood risk information and warning directly to all relevant critical infrastructure sites and utility companies

—  companies and organisations obliged to commission a survey of their facilities and make an assessment of the risk

—  companies and organisation obliged to react and take necessary steps in a timely manner if a risk is found.

  27.  Depending on the nature of the risk, the necessary steps might include stockpiling barriers and materials, putting project teams on standby or even erecting defence barriers.

  28.  For some facilities where there is a more regular or more serious threat of flooding, more permanent defence protection should be considered. Many such critical infrastructure sites also carry a risk of terrorist attack and the Concertainer units double up to provide anti-terrorist protection.

SUMMARY

  29.  Hesco Bastion's area of expertise lies in the design, production and supply of the Concertainer units. The company is not an emergency response planning agency nor is it a project management company. However we have had first hand experience around the world in this field and our intention and hope is that this submission will contribute in some way to improving the UK's response to the growing threat it faces from flooding.

Hesco Bastion

September 2007