GPSJ Autumn 2024 ONLINE - Flipbook - Page 26
GPSJ
FLOODS FEATURE
FLOODS FEATURE
Government’s emphasis on
housebuilding must be balanced
by effective flood management
Alastair Chisholm, Policy Director, Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
(CIWEM)
At the end of last year, the government announced an update to its National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
Setting out its planning policies and how these should be applied, the NPPF provides a framework within which
locally prepared plans can provide for housing and other development in a so-called ‘sustainable manner’.
Billed as a means of accelerating
the delivery of much-needed new
housing, the update marks a 昀椀rst
step in ministers’ promises to
overhaul the planning system and
“get on the side of builders not
blockers”.
The headlines focused on
a 12-week deadline for local
authorities to progress local plans
to adoption where they are still
in development (currently less
than a third have adopted plans)
and that plans should re昀氀ect its
updated housing delivery targets
by July 2026. It also points to
rules for building on greenbelt
land being relaxed, with councils
asked to review their greenbelt
boundaries through a “common
sense” approach using ‘grey belt’
land – unproductive land on the
edge of existing towns and cities.
Water under pressure
Review and reform are
necessary, of course, but they
cannot come at the risk of putting
even greater pressure on already
over-stretched local planning
authorities and lead local 昀氀ood
authorities. I can see no evidence
of any extra support for them to
ensure that new developments
coming forward at greater
pace are resilient to increasing
26
昀氀ooding and water supply
risks, exacerbated by a rapidly
changing climate.
With our water resources
in an extremely precarious
state right now, how can the
government’s proposed building
of 1.5 million homes in the next
昀椀ve years happen without adding
huge pressure on our water
infrastructure? The key areas at
risk being increased 昀氀ooding,
river health, and nutrient pollution
in the surrounding areas. On a
positive note, 昀氀ood risk has been
recently re-evaluated and is (or
will be) signi昀椀cantly higher than
previously understood.
Limiting the impact that
ambitious housing development
has on our water infrastructure
is critical. We need to make
housing climate-resilient, 昀氀oodresilient and low-impact on water
resources and nature.
The negative rhetoric we’re
hearing from government when
it comes to overhauling the
planning process is not helpful.
We need innovative, practical
nature-based solutions rather
than provocation.
Risky planning reform
We know the planning process is
not perfect and in need of reform.
But giving planning o昀케cers
more power to make decisions
and speed up the process by
potentially bypassing important
technical advice and scrutiny is
a risky strategy. It needs to be
balanced by ensuring we bake in
sustainability at every stage of the
process.
There is a view at the top
of government that rules are
red tape. Rules should be
simple and workable, but they
should be unambiguous and
help development move with
these times of climate change.
Eroding rule clarity – framed as
removing red tape – can lead to
more subjectivity, interpretation,
con昀氀ict, challenge and, ultimately,
wasted public money and time
in the development process. It
will leave new communities unresilient and exposed to 昀氀ood and
other climate impacts.
Given the state of our climate,
this will be a situation government
will have created knowingly,
by disregarding the advice of
its formal advisers such as the
Climate Change Committee
and National Infrastructure
Commission.
This is backed up by the
experience, knowledge and
practical application of CIWEM’s
GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR JOURNAL WINTER 2024/2025
thousands of members working
in water and environmental
management. As a professional
community, we’re calling on
the government to prioritise
water and 昀氀ooding resilience in
their planning and before major
housebuilding starts.
SuDS as standard
One area of improvement is
better and more use sustainable
drainage systems (SuDS) for all
new developments, which are
increasingly prone to 昀氀ooding,
hard to insure and even secure
mortgages for. SuDS should
become standard practice.
While we have seen some
progress, not enough is being
done. The last government
committed to implementing
Schedule 3 of the Flood and
Water Management Act 2010
(which mandates SuDS in new
developments with a route
to long-term adoption and
maintenance). However, the new
government is non-committal
over whether it will take this
forward, possibly because it
views it more as ‘blocker’ than
‘builder’.
Proper SuDS integration,
supported by a ‘sponge cities’
retro昀椀tting approach, would
