The Government is failing to take a lead to ensure the rapid implementation of Sir Michael Pitt’s recommendations on flooding, industry experts have warned.
Speakers at a Hydro International conference urged the Government to take decisive action to empower local authorities to implement surface water-management plans, and resolve who should be responsible for the control and maintenance of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS).
Alex Stepehenson, director of Stormwater for Hydro International, said: ‘There is still too much confusion over which organisations are responsible for owning and maintaining SUDS schemes, and for developing joined-up surface water-management plans.
‘There seems to be a vacuum forming in the wake of the Pitt report.’ DEFRA aims to consult on a draft Floods and Water Bill in spring 2009 to introduce necessary legislation, but there is ‘a strong feeling of the need for greater urgency and clarification on the roles of agencies’.
He said it was simply a matter of political will and financial assistance to give local authorities the tools they needed to start to implement the changes. ‘So much local knowledge and expertise has been lost as bodies such as the drainage boards were dispersed, it will take time to build it up. That’s why we need to start now rather than next year or the year after,’ Stephenson concluded.
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