Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed Mr David Henshaw (KALC) and Mr Liam Wooltorton (Canterbury CC) to the meeting.

RESOLVED that subject to the correction of the figure set out in Minute 8 (2) to 39,600 km of sewers and to minor textual amendments, the Minutes of the meeting held on 18 July 2016 are correctly recorded, and that they be signed by the Chairman.

(1)       Rachel Kairis from the Environment Agency began her presentation by giving the national picture. She said that following Storms Eva and Frank in 2014/15, the EA had invested £12.5m in kit such as temporary defence barriers, pumps, instant command units, and sandbagging machines.  All of this equipment was stored securely in various depots across the country. The closest depot to Kent was in Rye.

(2)       Rachel Kairis then said that the EA had made changes to its modelling and forecasting system in order to enable them to get a flood warning service to more people. The aim was to be able to enable 100% of the population to receive messages and take action.

(3)       The Environment Agency had also run an autumn flood risk campaign during the first two weeks in November in order to encourage communities to prepare for flooding events and to produce community flood plans. 

(4)       Rachel Kairis then reported on developments in Kent.  She explained that she was the Instant Ready Implementation Officer in the county, responsible for leadership in the implementation of the EA’s plans.  There were a number of themes such as Leadership and Behaviours which aimed to get 100% of the EA staff (such as Flood Support Officers and Instant Support Officers) onto a duty roll.  The current percentage figure was 501 staff which equated to 97% of Kent’s EA staff.

(5)       Another theme was Mutual Aid and Visualisation which aimed to make sure that EA staff throughout the UK followed the same practice.  In the event of a major emergency staff from all regions would be able to support those most badly affected.  At the same time, staff were now equipped with I pads so that they could relay images rapidly to the incident room.  There was a possibility that the EA in Kent would be provided with drones. It was intended that CCTV on the watercourses would become more widespread. 

(6)       Rachel Kairis said that the EA had introduced Major Incident Plans (MIPs). Three of these covered parts of the South East Area: South West Coast, East Coast and Thames.  A specific MIP was in production for London surface water. These MIPs were strategic documents for use by senior officers throughout a serious incident including the response and recovery. 

(7)       The Environment Agency was also looking into a system known as Stop and Slow.  The Incident Room in Kent had been open continuously for 3 months in 2013/14.   It had consequently been decided that it was necessary to identify the work that needed to continue during a major incident and that which could be stopped.  The dissemination of some information could also be slowed down so that the EA could continue with defence work.

(8)       Rachel Kairis concluded her presentation by describing Exercise Certus which had run from 5 to 12 October 2016. This was a national exercise which had involved 70 players from the South East Area out of over 1,000 nationally.  It had tested a number of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

(1)       Paul Flaherty (Kent Fire and Rescue) gave a presentation in his capacity as Chairman of the Training and Exercise Group of the Kent Resilience Forum. The slides are contained with the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website.

(2)       Mr Flaherty said that the Kent Resilience Forum (KRF) had been set up as a requirement of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to provide a joined up and co-ordinated response in the event of a large scale civil emergency.  It had established Category 1 and Category 2 Responders. Category 1 Responders included Kent County Council, the District Councils, the Police, Fire and Ambulance services, the NHS, Public Health England and the Environment Agency. Category 2 Responders included ports and utilities such as the water and power companies.   Overall, there were nearly 100 organisations within the Kent Resilience Forum. 18 to 20 of these were major stakeholders who attended most of the constituent planning groups.  

(3)       Mr Flaherty said that the Environment Agency attended many KRF meetings as a Category 1 Responder and that they also convened the Severe Weather Advisory Group (SWAG) in the event of a flood risk.  SWAG would discuss next steps in response to predicted flood conditions.  

(4)        Mr Flaherty identified some of the matters which had required either a co-ordinated response or joint working in preparation for potential emergencies, ranging from the coastal floods of 1953, to the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster in 1987, the 2012 London Olympics and latterly Operation Stack.

(5)       Mr Flaherty went on to set out the structure of the KRF.  All Category 1 Responders were represented on its Strategic Group which met every six months, usually at Chief Executive level.  The Executive Group (Director level) met quarterly in order to set out operational priorities.

(6)       Mr Flaherty then said that three Groups sat below the Executive Group. The first of these was the Risk Assessment Group which had published the Kent Community Risk Register in 2016.  An example of this Group’s work was in identifying the biggest risk to Kent as that from coastal flooding; particularly tidal surge.  As a consequence, Exercise Surge had taken place in September 2016 in order to assess response capability in Kent.  He said that a major reason why Kent had played a lesser role in Exercise Certus was that Kent’s capacity had already been tested. Exercise Surge had been focussed upon New Romney because of the 14,000 people who would potentially need to be evacuated from the Marsh in the event of major tidal flooding.  The issue facing the responders was how to do so when the key highways infrastructure was out of action due to being under water.  He explained that a major reason for siting the Environment Agency equipment depot in Rye was that it was easier to get equipment to the Marshes from there than by using other routes.

(7)       Mr Flaherty continued by saying that the Emergency Plans and Capabilities Group had the role of ensuring that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

(1)       Max Tant gave a presentation. The slides are contained with the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website.

(2)       Mr Tant said that the Government had been concerned to ensure that residential homes had access to affordable insurance against flood risk.  Following discussions, the Government and the Insurance industry produced a statement of principles which meant that any Insurance Company that had a policy holder who had been a victim of flooding was obliged to continue to offer insurance to that customer.  As this principle did not apply to any other Insurance Company, this meant that the customer had to rely on the original insurer, and the statement of principles had not set out what terms the Company had to offer.   

(3)       The Insurance Companies had believed that the Government would invest more in flood defences, thus reducing their exposure to the risks.  After 13 years, the Insurance industry did not feel that these expectations had been met and they had become unhappy with this continuing.  Instead, the insurance industry had developed Flood Re which was a re-insurance scheme for Insurance Companies, enabling them to get insurance for themselves against the risk of flooding carried by domestic home insurance policies.  The policy holders were unaffected except for the premium for Flood Re which was set according to their Council Tax band.  They continued to take out a policy and the Insurance Company took out its own policy with Flood Re.  This applied in cases where the flood risk was at a 1 in 75 year annual return period or higher.

(4)       Mr Tant said that the intention was that the Flood Re pot would build up to £180m through premiums paid by all companies that offered home insurance. Flood Re did not apply to properties that had been built after 2009, nor did it apply to businesses.  There were also other exemptions which could be seen on the website www.floodre.co.uk. 

(5)       Mr Tant said that Flood Re was making a difference and that people who would otherwise have found the terms of their policies to be prohibitive were certainly seeing the benefit and accessing affordable cover.

(6)       Mrs Brown said that as a result of Flood Re, the premium for her property in Yalding had reduced to £1,300 from £4,000 and the excess from £5,000 to £250.  Many people in the Yalding were now able to afford an insurance policy when they had not been able to do so before, particularly as the local insurance broker had become an expert in this field.

(7)       Mr Vye described the circumstances in one part of the Lower Nailbourne and drew attention to the lack of information held by Insurance Companies in respect of the actual locations where flooding had occurred.  This had partly been the result of the Environment Agency’s maps which indicated that a village had been affected by flooding, rather than explaining that this had occurred in particular parts of it.  He suggested that this might  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

(1)          Max Tant gave a presentation. The slides are contained with the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website.

(2)       Mr Tant explained that the summary he was going to give about riparian rights and ownership needed to be treated as general information as there were many aspects of Law and common law which came into play in certain situations, on occasion overriding the general principles which he was going to explain.

(3)       Mr Tant began his presentation by setting out definitions. He said that a “watercourse” was defined in law as any channel through which water flowed (whether natural or man-made).   A “main river” was a watercourse which had been so designated by the EA. An “ordinary watercourse” was any watercourse which was not a main river.  “Ponds and lakes” were not watercourses unless they were on a watercourse. “Culverts” were pipes that watercourses flowed through.  Watercourse Regulations applied as much to culverts as to any other watercourse.

(4)       Mr Tant then explained that a riparian owner was anyone who owned land adjoining a watercourse.  It was generally assumed that if land ownership stopped on either side of a watercourse, each landowner was responsible up to the middle of the watercourse.  It was generally assumed that a landowner was solely responsible for any ordinary watercourse between their land and a highway.  It was rare for the highways authority to have this responsibility, although they might be responsible for any highway drains if the road was built on land that they had purchased. Most drains next to the highway in Kent were not highways drains and therefore not the responsibility of KCC to maintain.

(5)       Mr Tant went on to set out riparian rights. These were to receive the flow of water in its natural state; to protect their property from flooding and erosion; to fish in their watercourses; and to abstract a maximum of 20m³ per day of water for domestic purposes and some agricultural uses.  Some of these rights conflicted with guidance from other processes; for example, the presumption against increasing flood risk in planning.  

(6)       Mr Tant said that there were more responsibilities than rights associated with riparian ownership.  The passage of water had to flow without obstruction, pollution or diversion.  It was also a responsibility to accept flood flows through the land, even when it was caused by inadequate capacity downstream as there was no common law duty to improve a watercourse, and in consequence no obligation to enlarge a watercourse to protect anyone else’s property from flooding. Other riparian responsibilities were to maintain the bed and banks of the watercourse; to not dispose of waste in the watercourse; to keep the bed and banks clear of any matter that could cause an obstruction; to keep any structures such as culverts, trash screens or weirs that they owned; to protect their property from seepage; and to maintain any culvert on their land.  

(7)       Mr Tant then said that land drainage authorities had some powers over  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

(1)       Mr Tant reported on the EFRA Select Committee’s report on its Future Flood Prevention Inquiry, which had been published on 2 November 2016.  This report had made a number of recommendations including disbanding the Environment Agency and setting up a new flood protection agency. Other recommendations included proposals for better links between planning and flood risk management.  

(2)       Mr Tant agreed to provide links to the responses from various different bodies for inclusion in the Minutes.  Not many of these supported the recommendation to disband the Environment Agency.  These were:-

CLA:http://www.farmbusiness.co.uk/business/politics/cla-warns-against-mps-recommendation-for-new-national-flooding-authority.html

NFU:http://www.nfuonline.com/news/press-centre/press-releases/future-flood-prevention-nfu-response-to-efra-com/

Blueprint for Water: http://blueprintforwater.org.uk/2016/11/changing-the-status-quo-will-it-reduce-flood-risk/

National Trust:https://ntplanning.wordpress.com/2016/11/02/future-flood-prevention-our-response-to-the-efra-committees-report/

LGA:http://www.local.gov.uk/media-releases/-/journal_content/56/10180/8021485/NEWS

(3)       Mr Tant then said that the Government had to give a response to the Select Committee report and that he would report further to the Committee as these responses materialised.  It was likely that this would not occur until the Summer.

(4)       Mr Vye suggested that there were matters in the Select Committee report which the Committee should receive reports on. Examples were; Catchment Scale Management (the Stour); effective SUDS in all major developments in Kent; and the EU Directives which currently governed flood response activity.

(5)       Mr Lewin suggested that the Committee could receive a report on the implications for Kent of the Environment Agency’s Thames Strategy.

(10)     RESOLVED that the report be noted.

(1)       Tony Harwood delivered a presentation relating to Exercise Surge which took place between 27 and 29 September. The slides are contained with the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website.

(2)       Mr Harwood said that as Mr Flaherty had already spoken in detail about this subject, he would limit his own presentation to a brief summary which would draw out points of special significance.

(3)       Mr Harwood confirmed that there had been an element of fluvial flooding response within Exercise Surge.  The exercise had been based on a 1 in 500 year flooding incident based on a 1 in 1000 year tidal surge affecting the whole Kent coast.  This had covered watercourses such as the Medway and Stour.  The inclusion of a fluvial event had enabled all the Kent Districts to participate.

(4)       Mr Harwood said that the exercise had been very ambitious in terms of its scale.  Nearly 900 people had participated during the main part of the exercise, which had been between 27 and 29 September.  The key focus of the evacuation element of the exercise had been Littlestone.  150 people had been evacuated, with each person being counted as 10 for the purposes of the exercise.

(5)       All the District Councils except Shepway DC had utilised Oakwood House in Maidstone to simulate a table top response.  Shepway DC had used their Emergency Centre because of the major impact in their area.  The KCC Emergency Centre in Invicta House had been well utilised, including the participation of elected Members, Directors and other Officers.  The links between the KCC and Shepway DC Emergency Centres had been excellent.

(6)       The Evacuation Assembly Point for road evacuation had been in Littlestone and the Welfare Centre at the Marsh Academy in New Romney.  The moveable flood defence barrier had been tested in Littlestone. The Coastguard and Kent Fire and Rescue Service had been the main players in the “wet rescue” element of the response which had taken place in one of the gravel pits near Dungeness.   Lydd Airport had been the site of a separate exercise, simulating a situation where one emergency could be the trigger for another.  The Recovery phase had also been rigorously tested on 29 September.  KCC had taken the chair for this phase, after Kent Police had chaired the Response phase.

(7)       Mr Harwood concluded his remarks by saying that the critical point of running exercises such as Exercise Surge was the learning that came from it.  There had been much to learn because of the large number of participants and agencies involved and the realism of the scenarios.  A multi-agency debrief was taking place at the same time as the committee meeting, and he would report to the Committee on the eventual recommendations.

(8)       The Chairman suggested that the Committee might visit the Kent Fire and Rescue Service during the morning of its next meeting in order to see the Kent Resilience Team set-up. 

(9)       Mr Flaherty said that the Committee would be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

(1)       Mr Harwood said that Kent had received only 50% of its average rainfall for October. This had followed four drier than average months, including the driest four month period for North Kent since records had begun.  This dry spell had resulted in a large number of issues, including adverse agricultural and ecological impacts.  It had followed a very wet period in the month of June when 149 properties had been flooded or had required partner interventions to prevent them flooding.   The last four months had only seen 4 flood alerts, in contrast to 20 for the same period in 2015.  These figures demonstrated the great unpredictability of weather in Kent.  

(2)       Mr Harwood said that due to the wet early part of summer, water levels remained at normal levels except for the clay catchments. The River Beult was currently running at a very low level.  Recently, the weather had been wetter and this was expected to result in re-charging of aquifers and watercourses. 

(3)       Mr Bowles said that the unpredictability of rainfall levels had been demonstrated on 10 November when the four month dry spell had been followed by surface water flooding that had been so intense that it had brought parts of Kent to a standstill.  His personal data for rainfall levels indicated that in recent years, they had become more volatile than ever before.

(4)       RESOLVED that the report be noted.

Tuesday, 7 March 2017

Monday, 17 July 2017

Monday, 13 November 2017

(1)       The Committee asked the Clerk to bring forward the next meeting of the Committee to Monday, 6 March.

(2)       RESOLVED that the meetings of the Committee be scheduled as follows:-

Monday, 6 March 2017;

Monday, 17 July 2017; and

Monday, 13 November 2017.