The Environment Agency and other risk management authorities (RMA), including local authorities, are currently working in partnership to deliver 336,000 better protected homes and properties and avoid £32 billion of wider economic damages to the nation in the current six-year programme (2021–2027).
1800 properties better protected
In the first year of this programme, RMAs, including local authorities, have carried out works that better protect 1800 properties from flooding and coastal erosion with a capital funding in flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) of £189 million.
Local authority schemes can be challenging to deliver owing to the typically more dispersed nature of surface water flooding compared to river and coastal flooding, the need to secure partnership funding in areas where there may be no major investment drivers and the level of resource needed to assess, design and deliver capital schemes.
We welcome the Environment Agency’s updated guidance and tools to strengthen the delivery of FCERM capital projects that simplify the business case development, assurance and approval for local authorities and other RMAs. These changes have proportionality at their core and are focused on enabling business cases for smaller projects, assessed under a total value of £3 million for capital investment or £500,000 for preliminary studies and strategies.
Liliana Rose, Regional Delivery Manager, said: “Having dedicated a significant proportion of my career supporting lead local flood authorities in fulfilling their flood risk management responsibilities and aspirations, I have seen a number of projects with potential to transform local areas being shelved, slowing down the delivery of impactful capital programmes. On one hand, local surface water projects struggle to demonstrate sufficient benefits, and on the other hand, they are subject to stringent national levels of assurance and approval.”
Under the new local guidance, assurance is provided by local Environment Agency teams, in consultation with area directors and area flood and coastal risk managers or operations managers, who will also review the complexity, risk and profile of a project and decide whether a higher level of assurance is required by the independent Environment Agency assurance services.
The empowering of local teams has the potential to speed up the process and to ensure a proportionate approach to assurance. It also reflects the value placed on local knowledge and context.
It remains critical that RMAs demonstrate the potential of projects to deliver robust benefits. They should detail the options considered and how they were assessed through a single stage business case (or outline business case) as they seek financial approval to deliver the scheme.
At Binnies, we are working with a number of local authorities to unlock their capital programmes using this new guidance and starting to see the ambitions of the 2020 national FCERM strategy reflected in local programmes. We are also looking forward to the simplified arrangements to develop small-scale local property flood resilience schemes, expected at the end of July 2023, to help strengthen the ability of local authorities to deliver capital projects.