Environmental Agency
Rob Lunt (Partnership & Strategic Overview
Team Leader – Flood and Costal Risk Management) presented a
PowerPoint and summarised the following points:
- The Environment Agency (EA) was
started in 1996 to protect and improve the environment and have
10,500 staff members
- EA covers regulating major industry
and wastes treatment of contaminated land, water quality, water
resources and across to fisheries, inland navigation, conservation
and ecology and flood risk management (managing flood risk from
main rivers, reservoirs, estuaries, and the sea)
- The current six-year programme will
protect 336,000 properties compared to 300,000 properties in the
previous six-year programme. There will also be 2000 new flood risk
of flood defence schemes funded in this programme
- The £5.2 billion of funding is
split nationally and Warwickshire get £12 million to protect
up to 10,500 properties. 4618 residential properties in
Warwickshire are at flood risk
- With the new six-year programme they
looked more at the benefits then what could be achieved
- All issues are geographically linked
so the relevant departments from across the EA were brought
together to deal with issues. Warwickshire would involve fisheries,
biodiversity, geomorphology, and water quality
- There were five sperate catchment
issues across Warwickshire and Coventry (four in Warwickshire)
- In Leamington 227 properties were at
flood risk and climate change could cause these number to rise by
10%
- The data model they use was being
improved for the River Leam project
- Flood storage and flood defences
were planned for Leamington’s vulnerable locations
- Natural flood risk management is
also possible for flood defences e.g. tree planting, scrapes etc.
to stop water backing up and reaching water peak levels
- A whole-scale review was being
undertaken of the River Avon with the new model
In response to Councillor Fradgley, Rob Lunt said that the River Avon review
should start in 2023 but it was unknown what scale it could be so
no end date was available.
Councillor Redford said that his area needed
to know what the flood peak was in his area so they could be
prepared for flooding. Rob Lunt stated that there had been
discussions around the weir in Eathorpe.
In response to Councillor Jonathon Chilvers,
Rob Lunt noted that they were still looking at the best way for
funding opportunities for schemes as well as benefits and risks.
All schemes should improve the environment and include natural
flood prevention methods. A lot of variables need to be considered
like soil texture, but WCC can try its own methods of natural flood
prevention as it would always benefit the environment.
Councillor Dave Humphreys noted that houses
were being built in Birch Coppice which was often flooded so those
houses then get flooded. Warehouses have also been built on flood
plains which makes the flooding worse. He added that the EA rarely
seem to have objections to planning applications. Rob Lunt
confirmed that EA were a statutory consultee on all planning
applications. Sustainable development was encouraged, and they
would flag up flooding risks when seen; they could not disagree
with applications if they did not affect water courses. Their
comments could be ignored by the planning authorities though. He
agreed to investigate the Birch Coppice development.
Councillor Andy Wright added that Peddimore Brook that ran through Birch Coppice was
‘ripped out’ annually by the EA despite the
biodiversity. Other officers from the EA said this should be
happening and the Brook itself never floods. Rob Lunt agreed to
investigate this and it was likely linked to asset performance.
Councillor O’Donnell requested that
elected members be kept up to date with works going on in their
area.
Severn Trent Water
Matt Lewis (Network and Operations Lead) Tim
Smith (Flooding and Partnerships Manager) presented a PowerPoint
and summarised the following points:
- Severn Trent Water (STW) have 4.6
million customers nationally and are the only major water company
with no coastline. Therefore, none of their water waste is
discharged to coastal waters
- Water is taken from the environment,
processed and supplied to customers. Then wastewater is taken away,
treated and discharged back into the environment
- STW responsible for managing flood
risk from sewers when water comes out of it. 80% of this flooding
is caused by modern products being flushed e.g. wet wipes, nappies
and cooking oils. The UK’s sewage system is too old to manage
these
- Foul (wastewater) water flooding
happens with excess rainwater
- Sewer contents at any time was
always at least 5% raw sewage. Climate change rain will increase
flooding
- There were approximately 700
incidents of sewage getting into houses annually
- Look after some natural flood risk
areas
- Extensions/conservatories that will
cover manholes should be moved when these additions happen but not
a lot of people do this as it costs money
- STW have approximately 2400 storm
overflows. These overflows on the sewer network help protect
properties from sewer flooding in wet weather. They are consented
by the EA and checked regularly
- Over £20m was invested in
improving Leamington's sewerage sewer in 2011 / 2012
- Millions of pounds were spent on
individual houses to protect them from flooding
- STW planned to implement 40,000
civil monitors to monitor water levels in sewers and whether there
were any blockages causing the flooding
- The monitors were put in data led
areas but there is a team that looks at river catchments where
flooding can happen. Some will also be put into places where
developers had misused the sewer system before
- STW are not a statutory consultee in
the planning process on drainage, but builders have a right to
connect to their system. STW have requested developers to involve
them earlier on in building developments
- Sustainable urban drainage scheme
(SUDs) guidance was given to new developers
- STW was leading a £76 million
water separation scheme in Mansfield that will become the
UK’s blueprint for SUDS and STW will look at getting funding
for the next asset management planning period and several of these
schemes could benefit from it and reduce the flooding impact
- 27% of reasons for rivers in England
not achieving good ecological status is caused by the water
industry according to EA data so STW were working to improve this
and have reduced this to 16% in their operating area. They were
working with the other 85% to improve river quality
- They had five river pledges (ensure
storm overflows and sewage treatment does not harm rivers, create
more opportunities for everyone to enjoy rivers, improve river
care, enhance rivers to improve wildlife and be transparent with
performance plans)
- STW were working to achieve bathing
quality river quality on a stretch of the River Leam
- Central government was pushing for
water companies to have storm overflow plans which STW had already
invested in, and they were ahead of government targets
- There is a 25-year plan in place
until 2050 setting out STW’s plans
- Other initiatives that STW were
doing included decarbonising the water supply, helping customers
save water and faster environmental improvements to rivers. These
initiatives are part of an additional £566m investment which
were approved by OFWAT as part of post-COVID 'Green Recovery
Councillor Fradgley informed the committee that they collected
surface water and separated it from becoming foul water. After STW
tested it, they got a reduction in their water bills. Matt Lewis
stated that they did work with some developers to put water swales
in so they would save costs on their usage, but nothing was
mandatory for new builds.
In response to Councillor Wright, Matt Lewis
said they do not use the pitch fibre pipe anymore. They had 95,000
kilometres of pipe to replace so they would replace and prioritise
repair work on a risk basis. He agreed to see where it was on the
list.
In response to Councillor Chilvers, Matt Lewis
stated that in a full sewage pipe, 95% of it is formed of
rainwater. In heavy rainfall, wastewater is diverted into rivers
instead of homes/businesses, but this water waste is very diluted.
Ammonia samples taken from the river can show little impact to the
environment; STW were trying to prevent any impact. STW are
regulated by the EA so when there is an overspill in dry weather,
they talk to each other. To stop this the infrastructure would need
to be increased which would cost billions of pounds. Overspills in
dry weather are caused by blockages and STW would receive an alarm
when this happens and seek to respond to prevent issues before they
cause flooding or pollution.
Following a supplementary from Councillor
Chilvers, Matt Lewis stated that they would be responsible for
clearing up any impact they make in a river. Rob Lunt added that
any other clean up in a river would be the responsibility of the
landowner where the river flows through. The Chair noted that
rivers were often land boundaries so landowners would dispute whose
responsibility it would be to clean. Tim Smith said that EA stated
that agricultural waste was the biggest cause of rivers got getting
good river status. Matt Lewis noted that everyone had a
responsibility to not dump in rivers otherwise the water quality
will not improve.
In response to Councillor M Humphreys, Matt
Lewis said that all works have permanent reference numbers that can
be used to see when work was being done. He agreed to investigate
any specific issues.
Tim Smith informed the committee that more
information was available on their website.
Leamington-Sewerage-Strategy-2011.pdf
(waterprojectsonline.com)
65-23-Get-River-Positive-Annual-Report-March-2023.pdf
(stwater.co.uk)
Drainage and wastewater management plan | Our plans
| About us | Severn Trent Plc
green-recovery-report-2022.pdf
(severntrent.com)