Agenda item

To inform the Committee of the roles and obligations that the Council has in managing flooding and drainage matters in the borough as Lead Local Flood Authority and Highway Authority, and the roles and responsibilities of other organisations in flood management. The report also informs the Committee on the measures the Council undertakes to mitigate the risk of flooding.

The Chair explained that this topic had been brought forward by Councillors Conneely and Hassan following residents in their ward being affected by flooding. Councillor Conneely advised that a significant number of residents in Kilburn lost their homes and were still without permanent homes due to the flooding, which had a damaging impact on people’s lives. She had brought a resident to the meeting to speak on her experiences.

The member of the public relayed her experience of flooding in her home, highlighting that she had lost all her possessions during the flood. She had contacted her Housing Association during the incident but had not been able to get a response to calls or emails, so she had spoken to Councillor Hassan who got her a food voucher, and she was able to speak with the Council out of hours crisis line who got her a night residence at a hotel at around midnight. She had since been put on the locator list as she could not stay at her flooded property, and had remained in the hotel since with her family. In response to queries from the Committee, she advised that the most important issue was for someone to be at the end of the phone. She had called 999 who had advised it was not an emergency, and it was very late at night before authorities were aware of the impact of the flooding and she was able to communicate with the Council to get accommodation.

Those present thanked the speaker and expressed sorrow to hear about the experience she had. Carolyn Downs (Chief Executive, Brent Council) was disappointed her Housing Association had not fulfilled their statutory responsibility to respond in an emergency situation and offered to speak with the Housing Association in question.

The Chair thanked the speaker and invited colleagues present to introduce the report.

In introducing the report, Chris Whyte (Operational Director for Environment, Brent Council) advised that Brent was the lead flood authority in London with a number of obligations to fulfil. Brent maintained a Flood Risk Management Strategy on a regular basis and was responsible for the management, upkeep and maintenance for the service water gully network across the borough. There was also a requirement to maintain a Flood Management Asset Register. Brent Council had a clear responsibility for investigating flooding issues, alongside relevant partners including the environment agency and Thames Water. The Flood Management Team in Brent Council also played a role in planning proposals for developments. Chris Whyte concluded by highlighting that, with climate change, there was a very significant risk that flooding would become more frequent and serious, so flood risk management was a priority for highways teams.

The Committee was then invited to raise questions on the information provided, which focussed on a number of key areas, as highlighted below:

·                Regarding Brent Planning Policy, it was confirmed that there were plans to review the current vehicles crossing policy to include opportunities for action against climate change. Depending on the size of a front garden, the current Planning Policy required between 30-50% of soft landscaping, such as grass or planted areas, in order to increase soakaway areas for surface water, as well as encourage biodiversity.  For larger developments, the Flood Planning Act required a betterment, achieved through sustainable drainage design (SuDs). Developments were required to provide evidence of how they would achieve that to pass planning stages, with the Flooding and Drainage Engineer analysing proposals and making recommendations where necessary. In regards to training on flood risk management, the Planning Committee did not currently receive any but this could be looked in to.

·                In relation to enforcement action that took place around front gardens that did not contain the required 30-50% soft landscaping, the Environment Enforcement Teamcould not take action against someone concreting their front garden, but could influence if they were illegally crossing the footway. The Enforcement Team looked at reports of illegal crossovers, where people opened up their gardens, concreted them and drove across the footway to access them, which damaged public pathways. Where a resident refused to stop crossing over, the Council could put physical barriers in place to stop that crossing. In the instance that someone concreted their garden in a way that caused surface water to flow onto the public highway then action could be taken.

·                The Committee were advised that by maintaining Brent footways in asphalt and concrete blocks the Council were not providing any further surface water than there would be with slabs or bricks. The overall carbon impact for both asphalt and concrete paving was high in terms of the manufacturing of the materials, but over the course of its lifespan asphalt was more environmentally friendly. The asphalt was laid at an angle sloping towards gullies in the curb side. Porous materials were also provided around tree basis to allow water seepage there.

·                In relation to whether there were plans to replace the old Victorian drainage system within Brent, the Committee were advised that Thames Water had a very large programme of demand throughout London for sewage replacement which they looked at on a priority basis and cost benefit ratio. Brent did not currently have any priority areas for Thames Water, but Thames Water had been doing further studies around London recently to update their programme. Officers advised that it may not be something that was done within the next 2-3 years, and in that period intermittent flooding would continue and the Council had to act to mitigate that as best it could.

·                In relation to future projections and climate change, the Council were aware there would be much longer spells of rainfall in London in the future and that London had suffered immensely. In accordance with the Flood and Water Management Act the Council were required to check that all drainage implementations were in accordance with climate change requirements.

·                The GLA were working on a climate change document. Officers agreed that there should be a plan borough by borough to put in place remediation, but were happy with what had been implemented in Brent developments to offer flood risk remediation. Chris Whyte added that the Council were obliged to review and update the Flood Risk Management Strategy regularly and one was now required which could include content around climate change and a commitment to communicate around climate change in a better way.

·                Officers confirmed that the Council did not currently do any work to ensure homes in higher flood risk areas were receiving information about home insurance, but the Flood Risk Strategy could make recommendations around that and provide contact numbers and information, ensuring to be impartial. Councillor McLennan advised she could take the issue offline and look into whether this was something that could be offered through community hubs.

·                In response to what the protocol was for the Council’s out of hours emergency response, Alan Lunt (Strategic Director Regeneration & Environment) advised that, in the event of heavy rainfall, information was provided on the website about yellow warnings of heavy rain received from the Met Office, but it was very difficult to predict precisely where rain would fall and lead to potential flood threats. In the event of flooding the Council sought to maximise the number of out of hour’s lines available and if someone could not get through the line they would be directed to other appropriate agencies which were also detailed on the website. He emphasised the need for individual households to take responsibility and the council website set out what families needed to do to protect themselves and their property in an emergency. He explained that the Council were a category 1 responder but its role in dealing with emergencies was limited to protection of key services and also to protect against risks to human life and wellbeing. The council would have a role, for example, in ensuring power supplies to critical services such as hospitals were protected, working with the relevant partners. However, Brent, like all other councils, could not deploy sandbags when heavy rain occurred due to the difficulty in pre-empting where rainfall may be severe. The council played a role during the events of July 12 2021 in temporarily re-housing those whose homes were rendered inhabitable as a result of flooding and ensured they had access to food vouchers during this difficult period, reflecting the council’s role as a category 1 responder.

·                The Committee felt that, in the instance of the public speaker’s experience, there were unfortunate delays in information regarding the situation in Brent being made available to out of hours services not based locally and for external agencies. They acknowledged that once services were up to date on the situation the Council responded very efficiently and quickly, but advised there may be an opportunity to explore what could be done better.

·                There was a planned cyclical programme for gully maintenance. The gullies were priorities geographically, based on silt levels. Where there were individual issues with gullies, such as leaf fall during autumn, there was a reactive programme to address those issues with a target turnaround time of 48 hours. There were instances where the gullies were inaccessible, meaning a return visit may cause that time to lengthen.

·                In relation to holding Thames Water to account, the Committee were advised that the relationship with other third party organisations who had a stake in managing flood risk in Brent was something the Council took very seriously. There were a series of meetings set out in the calendar with Thames Water. More recently, the Leader of the Council and Cabinet had taken an interest in the relationship between the Council, the community and Thames Water and had established a series of liaison meetings at a senior level.

·                In response to how the Council could help Housing Associations and Registered Providers (RP’s) acknowledge their statutory responsibility to respond in an emergency, Chris Whyte advised that he would be keen as part of the revision of the Flood Risk Strategy to give better focus on the role and involvement of RPs and other associations in managing flood risk. There was a role for the Council to play in terms of ensuring RPs had the right guidance and support to inform their policies and procedures for responding to flooding.

It was RESOLVED:

(1)     That the following area for improvement in relation to the Council’s flood risk management be noted:

             (i).          To include more emphasis on climate change and RPs when reviewing the flood risk management strategy within the next 12 months.

            (ii).          That the out of hour’s emergency crisis response process is reviewed.

           (iii).          That the Planning Committee be given training opportunities on flood risk management.

(2)     To note that there were currently no locations in Brent identified as a priority by Thames Water for structural configuration of the sewage system.

(3)     To note that Councillor McLennan (Deputy Leader and Lead Member for Resources) would take forward a recommendation on promoting home insurance products to areas of high flood risk, and improve knowledge of home insurance opportunities.

(4)     To note Carolyn Down’s offer to write to the residents Registered Provider regarding the flooding incident the public speaker relayed to the Committee. The Committee would receive a copy of the letter sent to the RP.

The Committee made the following information requests;

             (i).          To receive customer service data related to gully cleaning.

            (ii).          To receive the data for numbers of enforcement actions taken against illegal crossovers.

           (iii).          For the Committee to receive the Planning Policy changes for front gardens once it was completed.