Advisor criticises government for sloth on flooding

The National Infrastructure Commission has criticised the government for what it sees as shortcomings in the government response last week to findings from the commission’s November 2022 study on reducing the risks of surface water flooding. 

In a statement, the commission said the government had accepted the principles behind a number of its recommendations, but “makes few new commitments on steps to manage surface water flood risk more actively and fails to accelerate work in key areas.” Commissioner at the National Infrastructure Commission, Professor Jim Hall, said: “It’s been over a year since government promised to implement legislation to end the automatic connection of new developments to the drainage system. It must get on with this as soon as possible.”

The commission asserted that its study set out a case for long-term flood reduction targets “in helping provide strategic direction and accountability, as well as informing joint local plans and investment decisions.” It said the approach had been endorsed by the Climate Change Committee and the National Audit Office. It added: “The government has agreed to consider further the merits of adopting such targets, while continuing work on developing a national set of indicators to monitor trends.”

It went on to say that the government response “stops short of any new commitments to removing the barriers to joint working, and does not accept the case for devolving capital funding directly to local authorities to implement joint local plans.”

Hall said: “Again, time is not on our side and the government must accelerate its work on its proposed flood resilience metrics and reducing the impact of new development to help bridge the gap.” He added: “Our analysis confirmed what many urban residents know – that surface water flooding is a serious and growing risk. More extreme weather and expanding development could increase the number of properties in England in areas of high risk from 325,000 to over 600,000 by 2055 if action is not taken.

“We recommended a package of measures to get a grip on the problem, which would mean that 250,000 cease to be at high risk of surface water flooding while boosting protection levels for thousands more. Sadly, government’s plan of action does not meet the scale of the challenge, and lacks the urgency required to meet the threat.”