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 impact of dredging on water levels in the Broads water system.

The majority of the Broadland rivers are tidal and are dredged for navigational purposes by the Broads Authority. For flood management purposes, any silt removed by dredging would be replaced by sea water on the next tidal cycle. This is unlikely to have significant impact on draining freshwater through the system and there would therefore only be a negligible impact on overall water levels.