Agenda item

-           Strategic Director of Environment and Development Services to report.

Further to Minute No. 101 of the meeting of the Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Development Services held on 4^th March, 2013, Councillor Smith, Cabinet Member for Planning, Highways and Street Scene Services, introduced a report by the Strategic Director of Environment and Development Services, which approved the Council’s Draft Rotherham Local Flood Risk Management Strategy (the Strategy) for consultation.

The draft Strategy had been forwarded to the Council’s partners, stakeholders and communities for consultations, and had been amended where necessary.

The Flood Risk Regulations 2009 implemented the requirements of the European Floods Directive, which aimed to provide a consistent approach to managing flood risk across Europe.  The regulations imposed new duties on the Council as the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) for Rotherham, including the responsibility for managing local flood risk in particular from ordinary watercourses, surface runoff and groundwater.

Under the requirements of the Flood Risk Regulations 2009 and the Floods and Water Management Act 2010, the Council’s key new roles and responsibilities were as follows:-

·                Duty to produce a local flood risk management strategy for the Rotherham area.

·                Ability to work with other risk management authority regarding flood risk.

·                Duty to exercise and carry out works in accordance with the national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy and relevant local flood risk management strategies.

·                Provide strategic leadership and partnership between lead local flood authorities and other risk management authorities.

·                Duty to co-operate and provide information with other risk management authorities.

·                Power to carry out works to manage flood risk from surface runoff or groundwater.

·                Power to arrange for a flood risk management function to be transferred to another risk management authority.

·                Power to request information from other key agencies and landowners in connection with its flood management functions.

·                Duty to act as the co-ordinator for the investigation of flood incidents and publish the results on the Councils website.

·                Duty to establish and maintain a register of drainage assets/ features and a register of structures/features which it considers are likely to have a significant effect on local flood risk.

·                Power to designate features or structures that affect flood risk which places legal responsibilities on the owner of the asset to manage.

·                Power to formally consent and/or approve works within Ordinary Watercourses which includes all temporary and permanent works.

·                Duty to promote and manage Sustainable Drainage.

·                Duty to establish a Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) Approving Body (SAB), which will have the power to approve, supervise, adopt and maintain SuDS, and how surface water is managed on new development sites.

·                Duty to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development.

The Flood and Water Management Act required the Council to ensure that adequate scrutiny arrangements were put in place to review, scrutinise and approve the Council’s Local Flood Risk Management Strategy for Rotherham.

The draft strategy was presented to the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Management Board on the 8^th February, 2013 where it was recommended that the Strategy be forwarded onto the Cabinet for approval.

The Strategy would be reviewed and scrutinised on a six yearly cycle as a minimum.  The Strategy was a ‘living’ document and a duty of the Council to update and amend the Strategy year on year, for example in response to changes in legislation, actual data following a major flood event, new asset data, resource and funding opportunities etc.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the final Strategy be approved.

(2)  That the publication of the final Strategy be approved.

(3)  That the periodic update and publication of the Strategy be approved.