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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to commission the Independent Drainage Board to oversee the maintenance of the River Deben in Suffolk.

The Environment Agency has a strategic overview of the management of all sources of flooding and coastal change and are the lead risk management authority for managing the risk of flooding from main rivers, reservoirs, estuaries and the sea.

The Environment Agency has permissive powers to undertake maintenance on main rivers. Where maintenance is the responsibility of the Environment Agency it focuses its efforts on those activities which will achieve the greatest benefit in terms of protecting people and property from flooding.

The Environment Agency can enter into public sector cooperation agreements with internal drainage boards (IDBs) for watercourse maintenance. This enables the Environment Agency to utilise the IDBs’ workforce, skills, experience and supplier frameworks. Such an agreement is already in place between the Environment Agency and the Suffolk IDB to deliver effective and efficient maintenance in the river Deben Catchment.

The annual maintenance programme for the river Deben currently includes channel clearance and grass cutting along with operational checks, the spend for this in 2023-24 was approximately £68,000. The Environment Agency anticipate a similar level of spend and maintenance activities for 2024-2025. Capital projects are undertaken as required, most recently in 2022-23 with approximately £121,000 spent on repairs to the river walls.