Approximately 30% of the Government’s £15M funding pot for surface water management plans (SWMPs) should be allocated to London, according to a forum representing the capital’s borough councils.
The Drain London Forum has recommended a hierarchical assessment approach to SWMPs, which would enable greater focus on the areas of the capital at greatest risk. The draft proposals, drawn up ahead of a bid for government funding, suggest that boroughs facing shared risks should work together on producing a common SWMP, storing collated data in a newly-created spatial data infrastructure portal (SDIP).
The forum justifies its demands for 30% of the funding pot ‘in view of the risk to London and the efficiencies and value for money that this pan-London proposal represents’. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pledged last week to announce how it will spend the remaining £14.7M allocated for SWMPs by 2011 on the ‘highest-risk areas’, but Drain London is confident that funding will be agreed for the capital this September, with work commencing the following month.
The hierarchical assessment approach would employ three tiers of work to identify and prioritise surface water flood risk in London. The first tier, strategic assessment, would sub-divide London into ‘areas’ that share a common risk of flooding – initial analysis suggests there may be 13 areas, many of which are based upon river catchments. In the second tier SWMPs would be prepared for each area, from which a representative would be nominated by one of the constituent boroughs to act as an area champion. The third tier would see each area-wide SWMP identify critical drainage areas, where significant flooding has, or is predicted, to occur.
Drain London claims the proposals would deliver greater coordination between boroughs and provide better value for money than could be achieved if all 33 London authorities were to submit individual bids.
Michael Ojo, London Councils’ head of environment, said proposals for SWMPs for the whole of the city would ‘help us deal with the risks in London that Defra has identified as quite high’. The report will go before London Councils’ transport and environment committee executive next week.
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