John Kelsall, an observer representing CRAGG, Carlisle FLAG and Board member of the Cumbria Strategic Flood Partnership spoke in summary of the focus presentations
JK recalled when he was last at Brockholes he had given a talk on the experiences of Carlisle during and after Storm Desmond and the potential for how the planning system could reduce flood risk. He had advanced the idea of making all natural flood plains distinct areas of limited development to counteract the legal effect of ‘precedent’ which allows infilling of these areas where development of a traditional nature should be receding from them further to protect from flooding. The concept is yet to see support from the RTPI and Government.
Of the presentations, Andrew Egerton’s will resonate with CRAGG’s own experiences. AE had emphasised particularly the aspect of losses in community trust when experiencing repeat events without effective and timely positive actions. JK suggested Carlisle was a particular case in point when 1600 houses were badly flooded in 2005, resulting in extensive EA investment in protection only to have 2200 houses flooded at least as badly in 2015 – community trust remains very low.
JK agreed with Andrew’s need to measure success by ‘outcomes’ however with much of flood alleviation being seen coming from Nature Based Solutions (NFM) ‘outcomes’ will be difficult to measure and way into the future. Actions that have early, positive, measurable outcomes are what is needed.
CRAGG encompasses the views of many FLAG’s that have gone through the same painful learning curve as South Lancaster. We need to try to short-cut this process with information resources that are more relevant than available through the Flood Hub. CRAGG, in this regard, is several years ahead of SLFAG simply because it started earlier and we need to save the time of, or speed up, duplicate learning so we can pass this experience on to those who need it.
Coming particularly out of the Storm Desmond experiences JK emphasised a clear need to maintain our river systems from their outfall, up through the respective catchments. This would promote early measurable outcomes that would benefit Andrew and many FLAG’s like his. Blockers to this straight forward approach appear to be principally the law in the form of the Wild Life Act and Natural England where serious conversations need to be made to enshrine the compromises now needed within new legislation. This aspect has recently been raised by Keith Ashcroft during discussions last month on the surprising demise of the Cumbria Strategic Flood Partnership.
JK urged the committee to take regard of the points raised. If, as communities, we do not call upon our politicians to account the required law changes will not come forward and our RMA’s will be hamstrung and continue with one off projects unable to initiate the maintenance progress that is long overdue.
