Agenda item

(1)       Mr Harwood referred to Minute 11 (3) concerning the June 20-15 multi-agency workshop to consider potential evacuation issues in Romney Marsh in the event of a major coastal flooding event.  He said that this was part of a wider DEFRA East Coast flooding project: The Use of Roads to Evacuate and Shelter People.  The report back from this project would take place on 3 December at the DEFRA Offices in Smith Square. 

(2)       Mr Flaherty informed the Committee that the 2016 Annual Severe Weather Exercise would be using the Romney Marsh scenario as its table top exercise.

(3)       Mr Harwood referred to the Emergency Planning Society award to the Kent Voluntary Sector Emergency Group and said that it underlined the fact that volunteers were now integrally involved in so many aspects of Kent’s resilience work, including flood response.  They had recently been part of Exercise Beowulf on the Isle of Sheppey which had focussed on multi-agency oil pollution response. 

(4)       Mr Harwood informed the Committee that the total of Environment Agency flood alerts issued since July 2015 had now risen to 21 as a result of a recent event between Pegwell Bay and Deal.  He warned that Kent was now just past the peak of the astronomical spring tide season and that more high tides were still expected in the coming winter period.

(5)       Mr Bowles asked for the information contained in Appendix 3 of the report to be circulated to all Members and the Parishes.

(6)       Mr Davies said that he was concerned about drainage infrastructure in relation to surface water flooding.  He said that drains were not being cleared as often as they needed to be.  In Tunbridge Wells, this matter was raised by all the Parish Councils and also by local residents.   He suggested that Kent Highways, transportation and Waste should be informed of this local concern and asked to take appropriate steps to alleviate it.

(7)       Mr Harwood said that he and Mr Tant were shortly due to meet the Drainage Manager to discuss winter preparedness. They would be discussing another of matters including local pumping capacity and capability.

(8)       Mr Davies noted that in contrast to the Netherlands, privately owned ditches were often not maintained or even filled in.  This seemed to be because the Dutch landowners had a legal responsibility to do so, unlike their UK counterparts.

(9)       The Chairman replied to Mr Davies by saying that the obligation on landowners to clear ditches and drains was covered by the riparian ownership laws.  He asked for an item on riparian ownership to be included on the agenda for the next meeting on March.

(10)     Mr Hills said that one of the complications was that whilst Natural England was attempting to prevent over-zealous cleaning of dykes because of potential negative impacts upon wildlife, the IDBs were very supportive of doing exactly that. This meant that landowners were often not clear as to precisely what was expected of them. 

(11)     Dr Eddy asked whether high level water tables were expected in combination with the forecast high tides.  

(12)     Mr Harwood replied to Dr Eddy by saying that tide locking was potentially an issue during high tide episodes.  High tides prevented ground and surface water from draining into the sea.  There was also a specific urban issue where groundwater could drain into basements without anyone being aware of it.  It was inevitable that water tables would rise in winter because trees and other vegetation were no longer sucking up the rainwater during the growing season.  The Met Office was predicting that the weather would remain mild and unsettled at least until Christmas.  This meant that there was a heightened threat of all forms of flooding, which required vigilance across the entire resilience community.

(13)     Mrs Brown said that from Yalding’s perspective, gullies were very well cleaned. The exception occurred when clearing them was practically problematic (including areas where parking was an issue).  This would result in lengthy periods where no action to overcome the problem seemed to take place. 

(14)     Mr Pearman informed the Committee of a report on the drainage infrastructure which had been prepared two years earlier.  This had concluded that the drainage infrastructure was not fit for purpose and had been historically under-resourced.  It had identified problems with the system itself as well as the utilities which worked around the existing system. 

(15)     Mr Pearman continued by saying that there was no single solution to this problem.  He advised that each District or Borough should have its own drainage manager, working with the Area Highways Manager, all of whom were experienced and were able to take action to overcome the problem (including full gully clearance if appropriate). 

(16)     Mr Pearman went on to say that he and the Highways officers had recently met to consider the problems in detail.  He was very much aware that Sevenoaks was subject to flood risk.  Debris within the drainage system often originated from properties further upstream.  The responsibility was shared between the Parish Councils, the local landowners, the drainage engineers and the highways engineers. His own responsibility was to explain that there was no instant answer. If a problem was alleviated, it could often return very quickly.  The most important thing was to raise awareness and to ensure that people’s first port of call was the local highways engineer through the Parish Councils rather than the emergency services.  KCC did not have the resources to send an engineer to every blocked gully.  The answer was known locally and that was where the problem-solving needed to start.

(17)     Mr Dobson said that upon its creation, the Environment Agency had taken over a number of drainage responsibilities from the Internal Drainage Boards, and had returned many of them to the IDBs at a later stage due to their lack of capacity to take them on.  He believed that drainage problems could be coped with more effectively if there were clear lines of responsibility focussed on a single agency.

(18)     Mr Terry described the drainage problems in Vale Road in Broadstairs as an example of the immense problems when a soakaway ceased to function for an unknown reason. It had eventually emerged that many years earlier, a garage owner had poured oil through the drainage system, creating impermeable lining over the chalk walls of the soakaway.  The result had been that this part of Broadstairs had been highly susceptible to flooding since just after the Second World War.  

(19)     Mr Tant said that heavy rainfall in August and September had caused local flooding events in parts of Kent.  This had led KCC to carry out its legal duty to investigate these events, particularly in Tunbridge Wells.  The findings were shortly due to be published.

(20)     Mr Tant replied to a question from Mr Rogers by saying that the Flood Risk to Communities documents for Swale, Thanet and Sevenoaks were being prepared. The Maidstone and Tonbridge and Malling versions were due to be published shortly after some additional local consultation had taken place.  The intention was that all of them would be published by the end of March 2016.

(21)     Mr Bowles said that he had taken the Canterbury document to each of the Parish Council meetings in his constituency. They had all commented that a similar document for Swale would be very useful indeed.

(22)     RESOLVED that the level of alerts received since the last meeting of the Committee be noted.