Agenda Reports Pack (Public) 15/10/2012, 19.00 - Meetings ...

Recommendation Eleven: Flooding Data FormatIt is recommended that Thames Water and the Council agree upon a uniform dataformat for data collection.Recommendation Twelve: Flood ContactsIt is recommended that, in order to facilitate a better working relationship betweenthe Council and Thames Water, each organisation identify an individual point ofcontact for operational matters.Working Together3.9. Under the FWMA the Council has an obligation to establish and maintain a floodingasset register. The flooding asset register includes key assets (structures andfeatures such as a wall, ditch or bridge) that are known to cause or allow the majorflooding of properties, critical infrastructure or block major roads when the asset isnot functioning to an adequate level. The Task Group heard from Ms. Bateman thatcompiling this register had taken over eight months and cost over £12,000, excludingher time, but had resulted in a better understanding of the flooding risks in a givenarea.3.10. The Task Group recognised that the sewer infrastructure would be a key competentof the flooding asset register. Whilst the local Lead Flood Authority has responsibilityfor surface water flooding, it is not responsible for monitoring or maintaining thesewer system. There are about 320,000 km of public sewers and around 150,000 kmof private sewers in England and Wales. Around 7% were built before 1885 and themajority were built before the Second World War 10 . While ‘no flooding in a 1-in-30storm’ is generally seen as a goal for urban public sewer systems, it has onlybecome common from 2006. Given that less than 1% of the national seweragenetwork is newly built each year, it means that relatively little will have been builtsince 2006 and so the overwhelming majority of public sewers will be at much lowerstandards.3.11. The Task Group felt that it was vital that a good working relationship is establishedbetween the Council and Thames Water in order to effectively manage and mitigatesurface water flooding risk in the borough. In particular the Task Group felt that therewas significant scope for improvement in the working relationship between these twoparties in relation to (i) reporting of flooding events (ii) sharing of information inrelation to the existence, maintenance and monitoring of the sewer system and (iii) amore collaborative approach to the planning process.Reporting of Flooding Events3.12. As has already been noted, due to the current limitations with respect to mappingsurface water flooding risk, the Council is heavily reliant upon residents andbusinesses in the borough reporting flooding events when they occur. The TaskGroup felt that it was highly likely that those people who suffered from flooding, ifthey did report the event, would either report it to Thames Water or the Council, notboth. Therefore the Task Group felt it was vital that a system was designed so thatany incidents that were reported were shared as soon as possible between the two10 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk- 28 -Page 187