To approve the establishment of a county-wide Natural Flood Management project which will run until 2020/21.

Following the 2016 Autumn Statement, Defra announced £15m of government funding for natural flood management schemes across England. The Environment Agency, together with Risk Management Authorities, Natural England and Forestry Commission, identified a number of projects and following consultation with the Flood Minister, have allocated funding to 24 catchments (one of which covers Herefordshire – the ‘River Wye and Lugg Natural Flood Management Project’).

Natural Flood Management (NFM) utilises land management measures to store water and slow the flow in upland areas to reduce flood risk downstream. This approach manages risk in an integrated and holistic way, to proactively tackle the causes of flooding. NFM measures typically include wetland and bog creation or restoration, improvement and maintenance of buffer strips, contour ploughing and afforestation, and the installation of leaky woody structures in water courses.

The River Wye and Lugg Natural Flood Management Project, which will run until 2020/21, will utilise experience gained on nationally recognised projects such as the Stroud Rural Sustainable Drainage (RSuDS) Project and the Shropshire Slow the Flow Project and will involve partners such as the Environment Agency, Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC), Natural England and the Forestry Commission.

The Environment Agency proposes to allocate £750k of funding to implement NFM measures, working on both new and existing community flood alleviation projects within the River Wye and Lugg catchments, and part to furthering works on land and soil management practices within Herefordshire. The funding will also contribute to additional monitoring and research and redevelopment, to better inform where there are currently knowledge gaps and provide evidence of the effectiveness of the NFM measures being implemented.

That:

(a)       Herefordshire Council undertakes the Natural Flood Management project, subject to securing Environment Agency funding; and

(b)        the assistant director environment and place be authorised to take all operational decisions necessary to implement the Natural Flood Management project in accordance with the submitted business case and within the scheme budget of £750k in consultation with the Cabinet Member.

Do nothing; no alternative organisations have been identified to deliver this project. The Herefordshire local flood risk management strategy has outlined priorities that need addressing and the Natural Flood Management project will help address some of these. By not accepting this funding offer, the opportunity will be lost. Furthermore, this is likely to result in adverse PR. Not least as Herefordshire Council is a ‘Lead Local Flood Authority’ and the management of this project would be consistent with its series of responsibilities to coordinate the management of local flood risk.