Agenda item

The item was introduced by the Flood Risk and Data Manager who took Members through the published presentation slides which consisted of the following areas:  

• Key achievements 2020/21
• Sustainable drainage
• Strategy refresh (2021)

Members were reminded that this item was focussed on the City-wide Flood Strategy and not the River Avon Flood Strategy which it had been previously agreed would be returning to scrutiny in due course.  Officers confirmed that Cabinet had that week approved a number of recommendations to endorse the preferred approach of ‘adaptive raised defences to manage the risk of flooding from the River Avon as set out in the Strategic Outline Case and approved officers to progress to the development of an Outline Business Case, and apply for grant funding to aid its development’.

• The Harbour condition survey of all the harbour assets; this was now complete and was fundamental to understand before further action could be decided and taken forward.
• Following advice from Scrutiny Members in the previous year the Flood Risk Officers had recruited 11 Flood Wardens across the City
• Avonmouth Severnside Enterprise Area (ASEA) Ecology Mitigation and Flood Defences Project: This project was said to be a partnership between South Gloucestershire Council, Bristol City Council and the Environment Agency that focuses on helping to support the growth of the Avonmouth Severnside Enterprise Area and protecting the existing communities from flooding.  This it was said had been in the pipeline for many years but had now started. 
• Strategic Flood Risk Assessment: Officers had undertaken the work themselves and helped the Council’s Strategic City Planning Team to do the necessary assessments instead of hiring consultants to do the work.  Another key output from this work has been the development of an online mapping tool that shows all the flood risk modelling results on webpages that will go live very soon and will be available as a resource to the public and developers.
• Sustainable Drainage Schemes: use green infrastructure to reduce flooding rather than traditional pipes and officers are looking to install more of them.  The scheme is linked to wider initiatives such as the Liveable Neighbourhoods Projects.  The Southmead Regeneration SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Scheme) work had now been completed and Phase 2 was now being planned.  Officers asked Members to notify them of any new transport schemes or ideas where additional SuDs could potentially be built in. 
• The Environment Agency had recently up-dated their Flood Risk Strategy and Officers proposed to up-date the Council’s Strategy in line with that. Details of how they will be aligned are contained within the published slide deck.

The following points were then discussed:

The Chair thanked Officers for the up-date and information and said she had been impressed that they had completed the Strategic Flood Risk Assessment in-house instead of using consultants.  The Chair also remarked how the Team always reported solid progress whenever they come to scrutiny. 

Another Member commented that the work was excellent and that he would bare SuDS in mind for future transport works.  He also asked what the timetable for the River Avon Flood Strategy was now. Officers said the next steps following Cabinet’s endorsement was to complete the business case which would take some time and would be in two phases.  Phase 1 would be constructed in the 2020’s subject to funding and planning consent.  Phase 2 was said to be adaptable depending on climate change but it was likely be in the 2060’s.

The Executive Director for Growth & Regeneration said there was still a lot of work to do on the funding strategy which involved bringing money in from a variety of sources including central Government and developer contributions.  To get to a point where there was reasonable certainty on the funding strategy was a top priority for the next twelve months. 

It was asked to what extent could existing developments be influenced or relied upon to make modifications to improve drainage systems?  Officers said one of the things they were keen for the strategy to promote was look at key river corridors and the areas in between them and see what can be done to make them work better for people, nature and reduce flood risk.  However, it was difficult to retro-fit SuDS because of constraints but they could happen anywhere and there was no bad place to install them because they always provided benefits.  New developments were said to be doing very well at reducing flood risk and all planning applications now leave with some flood risk reduction included. 

The Chair thanked all the Officers for their time and added that she had learnt a lot and felt genuinely optimistic about what was happening in Bristol after the Commissions’ meetings.