Dredging: Weaver Vale

(asked on 28th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of dredging the River Weaver in the Northwich and Sutton Weaver areas of Weaver Vale constituency.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 2nd February 2021

Dredging is an important part of the Environment Agency’s (EA) river maintenance regime. The EA will undertake dredging where there is evidence that it will reduce flood risk to local properties cost effectively without increasing flooding downstream.

The River Weaver is a water course modified to act as a navigation and as such the water level is controlled via structures and assets that are owned and operated by the Canal & River Trust. The navigation sections are dredged to maintain standards to allow the draught of vessels.

The EA investigated the potential merits of dredging in 2013 as part of its assessment of options for reducing the risk of flooding in Northwich. The EA looked at different siltation scenarios, including if silt levels and shoals built up, to see what impact there would be on flood risk. The EA concluded that this was not a significant issue in relation to controlling water levels in Northwich, and dredging was not found to be beneficial.

The EA has allocated resource to the future maintenance of the assets – the defence walls and demountable assets – that protect the town from main river flooding. However it has not allocated funding to dredging the River Weaver.

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