Rivers: Catchment Management

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I am aware of my noble friend’s valuable input and interest in the Slowing the Flow scheme at Pickering and other natural flood management measures; this is not the first time that she has raised this issue. Current planning guidance has a hierarchy of sustainable drainage options that developers can choose from for rainwater drainage. These favour options such as soakaways and sustainable drainage systems—for example, to a local pond or stream—over connecting to public sewers. We need to include the option of connection to the wastewater sewer, as this is a matter of public health. Removing the overall right to connect to an existing sewer would offer no clear benefits and could slow down housing development. But I acknowledge my noble friend’s consistent concerns about this issue, which I will raise again within the department.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the towns served by the River Severn, starting in Shrewsbury, then down through Ironbridge, Bewdley and my own city of Worcester, have been particularly badly affected? Worcester is used to flooding; we lose our racecourse every winter and often, sadly, the cricket ground as well. However, the flooding in Bewdley and Ironbridge is on an unprecedented scale this year. Does the Minister agree that a task force consisting perhaps of the Environment Agency and the local authorities along the line of the river, working together to find a long-term solution, might be a good idea?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

The noble Lord makes an extremely interesting point which I am happy to take back to the department. As he will know, this year in England we received 258% of our average February rainfall, with some areas, including his own, experiencing a month’s-worth of rain in 24 hours. I know that a number of people are still not able to get back into their homes. In the short term, we helped by quickly activating the Bellwin scheme, the flood recovery framework and the farming recovery fund. In the longer term, the Government announced in the Budget £200 million for place-based resilience schemes to help 25 local areas take forward wider innovative actions that improve their resilience to flooding. A scheme for the River Severn might fall within that purview.