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FLOOD DEFENCE UPDATE, MARCH 2005

Flood defences for Lewes – where we are at the end of March 2005

Last summer the Environment Agency submitted a revised flood management strategy for the Ouse Valley to DEFRA for approval. LFA was given a copy in January.

Standards of protection differ from those earlier:

Priority points scores – the higher the number, the greater the priority for public funding:

If you do not understand the arcane world of priority points, check them out at http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/policy/grantaid.htm#AnnexB. Basically, the threshold should decrease year by year as the better value projects are completed. Current DEFRA indications are:

But every year so far thresholds and predictions have increased! People in Cliffe should not hold their breath!

The points scores for the other cells are so low that further work funded from the national flood defence budget cannot be built for at least five years and much longer, if at all. The estimated cost of work at Landport is greater than the benefits so that defences cannot be funded from the national flood defence budget.

The low priority scores are due in part to very great uncertainty about the cost of work in Lewes and the very large contingency margin that has been included in cost estimates for purposes of cost benefit calculations. Lewes Flood Action is taking up this unfair loading with the Environment Agency.

Meanwhile the Environment Agency is:

• Using local levy funding to reassess the costs of defences for the Cliffe area and prepare designs that could be implemented without delay;
  
  
• Exploring with the Lewes District Council alternative sources of funding for flood defences:
  
  
  • Contributions to the North Street – Talbot Terrace Defences from any developer in the North Street area
    
    
  • National funds for cleaning contaminated land in Cliffe
    
    
  • Residents in Malling Deanery.

Tom Crossett has written a full report on the revised strategy. Contact him at tom@crossett.eclipse.co.uk for an e-copy. He also has an e-copy of the strategy.

Although Lewes Flood Action will continue to fight for a uniform 1:200 year standard of defence throughout Lewes, it recognises that it will be many years before this can be achieved, that climate change will halve the standard of protection within 80 years and that there could easily be a flood that overwhelmed the improved defences. The town therefore needs a package of measures that includes:

• Support for self help that reduces the consequences of flooding;
  
  
• Engineering that reduces the probability of flooding;
  
  
• Planning policies that ensure development does not occur in areas that are at risk of flooding.

Lewes Flood Action has revised its terms of reference to address this wider agenda.

Tom Crossett has written a paper on the wider agenda for the DEFRA Flood Engineers Conference in July. E-mail him for a pre-publication e-copy at tom@crossett.eclipse.co.uk.

Why does Lewes not rate high national priority for flood defences?

Yes, that is what it says in the 2004 EA flood defence strategy. Well, it's because there are too many properties in the South East with a flood risk greater than once per 100 years and there is just not enough money in the national flood defence kitty to go round in the near future. As floods Minister Elliot Morley once told us, Lewes is not the easiest place to defend. So our 400 or so properties with flood risk greater than the benchmark 1:100 year level are not good value for money in flood defence terms. That places them well down the queue. Lewes Flood Action does not think this is fair. Angela and Duncan McPherson are organising a letter writing campaign; e-mail them at duncan@dmacpherson2.wanadoo.co.uk for more details.

This page last updated 10 January, 2006