WEDNESDAY 14 NOVEMBER 2007

MR KEVIN WHITEMAN, MR ROBERT SALMON, MR DAVID FULLWOOD, DR JEAN VENABLES AND MR DAVID SISSON

  Q280  Chairman: Just before I bring Lynne Jones in, you said that some research has got to be done in trying to help you forecast the future demands on the sewage system. Who is going to do that research? Was that a plea for a national piece of work?

  Mr Whiteman: No, there are bodies in place. UKWIR, that Robert has already mentioned, which is the UK water industry's research establishment, is there to do exactly this sort of thing. What we need to recognise is that it is a combination of national research and local research, the national being the general decision on what are we planning for and then the local decision: how is that applied to our own cities and towns and the drainage systems?

  Q281  Chairman: Coming back to one of the lessons that has already come certainly from the evidence from both Sheffield and Hull, which is, if you like, ensuring that all the key players are round the same table, one of the unknowns, is the question of these severe weather events, and at the moment the planning for capacity flood prevention is on a probabilistic basis, depending on how risk is assessed of a one in so many years event, and that appears to relate back to the most extreme event that occurred within that whatever period of time?

  Mr Whiteman: Yes.

  Q282  Chairman: What we seem to be seeing is that you are having potentially such concentrations of water arriving that they go beyond what the current probabilistic model predicts. I am not an expert in this field, but do we need to have some new way of rating risk that all parties can adhere to, because at the end of the day if you know what the risk profile is, then you have got a pretty good idea of what you have got to invest to meet it?

  Mr Whiteman: Absolutely. I think that the risk profile changes, not because the design parameters change, but because the frequency of these events changes; so what is historically a one in 30 year event may be, as a result of climate change, in the future a one in ten year event. So it is the frequency that starts to change. If you want to plan for a one in 30 year event in the future—that may be a much more severe event than a one in 30 year event was looking backwards, that is the big question as to what you are planning for—and then we have to make some decisions about what level of protection we expect. It is an incredibly difficult thing to explain to someone that they have just been flooded by a one in 30 year event and two weeks later they are having a one in 50 year event. I cannot explain that to myself never mind explaining it to a layman. That poses some real challenges going forward. What is it we are planning for and what level of protection does society require, because protection costs?

  Q283  Chairman: True.

  Mr Salmon: I think perhaps that is not just a role for water companies. The interrelationships we talked about earlier of all the different system—the land drains, the sewers, the drains—we support the recommendations that are in the Foresight Report and in the Making Space for Water report that there should be an integrated approach to open drainage management. I mentioned the water resources. We have a 25-year water resources plan. It is currently out for consultation. We do not have an equivalent line for urban drainage. If we take this issue of risk seriously, and we do, this is something where we need a joined up approach between all the different organisations, to sit down, have that debate about what level of risk and consequence we are prepared to accept as a society and then act in a much more coherent and joined-up way in the way that we plan and take responsibility for our systems.

  Q284  Lynne Jones: Could I ask Yorkshire Water: what is your policy on the adoption of different forms of sustainable urban drainage systems, which I shall from henceforth refer as to SUDS?

  Mr Whiteman: I think that is all part of this integrated view going forward that Robert has mentioned. The adoption of sustainable urban drainage systems going forward is essential if we are going to even mitigate some of the problems we have had this summer. It is part of the planning regime really to ensure that that happens. We are now starting to become a team for the connections to our drainage systems, so that is very much driven through the local authority, but we would support them wholeheartedly in making that happen.

  Q285  Lynne Jones: You are obviously supporting them. Have you got any evidence that they work or particular types of systems work, and what about the maintenance?

  Mr Whiteman: I am not a technical expert in sustainable urban drainage systems. We can certainly come back to you with a technical answer to that.

  Mr Salmon: The principle of them has got to be right: slowing down the surface water run-off to give time for the sewer systems and the surface water drainage system to cope. We have attenuation lagoons that do roughly a similar sort of job, so part of this approach we are talking about we think SUDS are going to be absolutely essential, but who pays for them, how are they maintained, who monitors them going forward? I do not think these questions have been answered.

  Mr Whiteman: In Hull it probably would not make a blind bit of difference because Hull is a bowl and the water is soaking through or in the pipes. Hull was full this summer.

  Q286  Lynne Jones: What do you think should be done to encourage the adoption of SUDS, because there is the right for any dwelling to discharge into the sewers, so it bypasses often any consideration.

  Mr Whiteman: I think it is very much through the planning process and clearly the responsibility of the local authority. We think in this multi-agency approach in a place like Hull or a major conurbation the lead body should be the local authority.

  Q287  Lynne Jones: You would adopt any system of SUDS. Do you have any concerns that you might have responsibilities for these systems?

  Mr Whiteman: We would have to look at each system on its own merits and, like most sustainable urban drainage systems, it would not need adapting by us because they are self-sustaining in effect.

  Q288  Chairman: Mr Fullwood, do you want to make a contribution?

  Mr Fullwood: Yes. On SUDS we believe as an association that they are, in principle, a good idea but, as our colleagues have referred to, there is an issue with the on-going maintenance of them. When we as drainage boards respond to the planning application, the applicant puts in that the surface water is going to SUDS, we say, "Great, that is fine. What exactly do they mean, what are they proposing and, very importantly, who is going to maintain them?" Because the developer, rightly, quite understandably, wants to dispose of that responsibility as soon as possible, and sometimes they set up management companies which, for one reason or another, they are there for some while and then disappear, and then who picks up the responsibility. We believe that if SUDS are to be more to the fore, then there has to be a proper body made responsible or responsibility passed to an authority to maintain those systems.

  Q289  Lynne Jones: Would a change in legislation such as they have in Scotland help, do you think?

  Mr Fullwood: Yes, we believe so.

  Q290  Lynne Jones: And Yorkshire Water?

  Mr Sisson: May I add, the most successful one that an IDB in the UK has been involved was actually a multi-agency approach to providing a solution for Bedford, the Marston Vale Scheme, where all the agencies came together and provided a sustainable system that has provided for development within that area, and it seems to work very well, but it is difficult. These multi-agency approaches have to be brought about by someone.

  Q291  Lynne Jones: So it can be done voluntarily but there needs to be a legislative framework?

  Mr Sisson: Yes.

  Mr Fullwood: There needs to be the will to do it.

  Q292  Lynne Jones: The will does not necessarily require legislation though, does it?

  Mr Fullwood: I do not think so, no.

  Q293  Lynne Jones: What would you like to see then to promote these systems and to ensure that responsibility for their future maintenance is clear?

  Mr Fullwood: It can only be done through the planning process: as part of the conditions of planning the proper arrangement is made for the maintenance of on-going contracts.

  Q294  Lynne Jones: Have local planning authorities got the necessary powers?

  Mr Fullwood: I could not answer that one.

  Mr Whiteman: I think they have.

  Chairman: Have they got the skills to understand what the issue is?

  Q295  Lynne Jones: So we do not need any change in legislation. They have already got the powers if they wanted to use them?

  Mr Whiteman: To impose SUDS on a development, yes.

  Q296  Paddy Tipping: But what about the maintenance?

  Mr Whiteman: I think they can, because they can make it a condition of the planning that there is an organisation set up and there is some sort of escrow bond situation so that that is properly financed. I think actually they can, but I am not an expert in local authority planning, so maybe I should shut up.

  Q297  Lynne Jones: Dr Venables seems to be disagreeing.

  Dr Venables: I think that there is a need to have a long-term responsibility for the maintenance of SUDS schemes. Obviously it varies with the scheme, but there are a lot of schemes which require this long-term maintenance, and I think it is important to make sure that it is placed with an organisation that is on-going. I think you have already referred to the fact that sometimes the arrangements are somewhat short lived. I think there is an important aspect there that needs to be dealt with and I think Scotland has dealt with it far better than we have in England.

  Q298  Chairman: I want to put a point to Yorkshire Water. We seem to have got river basin management plans, catchment flood management plans, we talked earlier about strategic risk assessments and then, on top of that, we have got regional spatial strategies, all of which seem to touch in some way on somebody else's agenda, some sit on top. Are there too many of them? Are they properly co-ordinated? Do they inform each other well in terms of tackling the issues that we are looking at? I got rather confused about all the different relationships between all these different plans and approaches.

  Mr Whiteman: I think it is a complex arrangement for a very complex issue. Each time there has been a major flooding event the thing that is most commonly exposed is this lack of co-operation and agencies working together, and that is because it is very complex. You cannot escape the fact that to have one body responsible for every flow of water in a region is very, very difficult to do. Do they all relate well? Not always, but it is a very complex issue.

  Q299  Chairman: Yes, I realise it is complex; that is why I asked the question; but you are part of the process and I suppose I am asking myself: how effective is each one of these planning processes? I suppose there are some people who might argue: if you have got all this planning going on, why have you got problems? Yes, extreme weather events can sometimes beat the best laid plans, but I gather, for example, the Environment Agency are now about to change their organisational structure away from catchment area or river basin management. I have not quite worked out what that means, but you would have thought the natural habitat was a catchment area for the Environment Agency. So, you have got one set of plans for that, one for another. Are you involved as a water company?

  Mr Whiteman: In terms of the whole planning procedure, we are a very small part. We would try to ensure that whatever the political will was to develop these plans that we made sure our infrastructure could feed and serve those plans. That would be our role.