Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies were received by Cllr Cussons.

The minutes of the previous meeting of the Flood Management Working Party on 24 January 2023 were received by the Working Party.

Emily Mellalieu, Development Manager Team Leader, will talk about Natural Flood Management within North Yorkshire

The Members were given an explanation on the role that Natural Flood Management [NFM] has played in North Yorkshire and the ongoing maintenance and liability that is involved within that. NFM projects have been developed in North Yorkshire for several years now as a form of flood mitigation. This is being done both as a singular authority and in partnership with others. Authorities started to use the measure because the initial costs were cheaper, and it provided a dual purpose with helping to support the work needed for the biodiversity crisis. It was acknowledged that there were drawbacks to the scheme. The long-term costs could prove high due to the smaller replacement cycle, its benefits are often hard to quantitatively prove, and there are certain areas where physical approaches were still needed. It is now accepted that NFM is a regular part of the preventative “toolkit”, but members were informed that it needed to meet with other measures to ensure that North Yorkshire was mitigated in the most efficient way.

An update was provided on one NFM project that was developed, in partnership with City of York Council, in early 2022. The project was able to be developed due to a strong funding bid which could demonstrate that it would benefit multiple authorities. Alongside that, much of the baseline work was previously developed by LEP in their work with the Dales flood funding. It was shown to Members that this multi-authority approach would be instrumental in the future and would allow for the new North Yorkshire Council [NYC] to be competitive in attracting funding for future flooding projects. It was revealed that the project was initially being developed in York and the models used, and the delivery for that, would then be extended to a greater area, allowing for the lessons learnt and the innovations made to be carried out. In order for the scheme to succeed, it was said that the following questions would need to be answered:

·         How could further funding be accessed?

·         Could the scheme viability be proven across the wider area?

·         How can it be ensured that the benefit asymmetries are not too large, particularly at different points in the rivers? An example of this was given as whether the downstream communities would receive more treatment than the upstream communities.

Following the update, one Member shared their experiences of working with the flood defence systems being put in place by East Riding of Yorkshire Council, near Hull, and the funding models they put in place to support the NFM there. The Member asked if such a model could be replicated in North Yorkshire?

The response given that the progress made will be monitored but it would be difficult to reproduce in North Yorkshire due to the costs associated with the project in the long-term, accentuated by the size of the county. North Yorkshire Council will seek to encourage NFM projects but it would not be viable across the whole area as the shorter replacement cycle would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31.

For information, Appendix 1 contains the answers from various agencies to questions posed by a member of Norton Community Flood group.

Members reviewed the answers to questions that were posed by a Member of the Norton Community Flood Group to several flooding agencies.

Emily Mellalieu, Development Manager Team Leader, will explain how flood risk management will work within the new authority.  

An update was given to any changes that would be brought about by the creation of the NYC and the demise of Ryedale District Council. Members were reassured that, as the lead local authority since 2010, there would be little change to how flood risk management would operate.

Operational
The NYC would continue to hold a statutory duty for all internal flooding reporting and to follow the necessary investigative processes. In most cases this would involve maintenance of the affected homes and seeking to put in place improvements which would help to ensure the problems would not reoccur.

However, sometimes, the flooding reported is larger in scale, affects more people, or is more complex in the solution needed. In those instances, the problem is put into a weighted scaling system to ensure that those areas that are deemed to be of the highest priority received action first. Some of the criteria factors for this involve:

·         The ability for the area to receive funding.

·         The implications of not treating the problem.

·         The cost benefits analysis for the area.

Members were told of several areas which had been given this treatment over the years:

·         Malton

·         Kirkbymoorside

·         Dales Villages

·         South Craven

·         Tadcaster

·         Scarborough

Those areas that do not score highly on the weighed criteria were often supported through resilience measures. Support could also be found through the statutory commitment to be a consultee on the planning process, ensuring that those who seek planning permissions are supported through flood mitigation.

Communications
It was reflected that, moving into the new authority, it would be important to make sure that no gaps emerge. The knowledge that was provided by the districts would continue to be sought after, both from the staff that worked there, but seeking out new groups who could help to supply this knowledge and experience.

One way this knowledge would be found is through bringing different groups together to be best support communities. At first, this would be done through creating a corporate resources group that would draw upon the experiences of a range of different departments.

Another way communications would be distributed is through newsletters. It is hoped that this would raise awareness to communities of the work being carried out, raise awareness to the areas that might not know that they are at risk of flooding, and to provide key information on who to contact when those risks present themselves.

Questions were asked on the following:

As well as communicating down to communities, how would the NYC seek to take views from residents within those communities?

There is an awareness of the need to actively seek out the local knowledge. It will be crucial that the authority engages with the grassroots community groups and organises groups to discover problems and opinions. It was said that the Ryedale District Council Working Party has been crucial as a source of those views for the Ryedale area but that there was now a new opportunity to create linkages within both the town councils, but  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33.

Grace Lawes, Senior Resilience and Emergencies officer, will present on the action tracker and provide and up on next steps for open actions and a list of all the competed actions since the group formed (appendix 2).

The Members were presented with the action tracker (see minute annex) which showed all the actions which had been achieved by the Working Party’s efforts and to highlight any outstanding work that would be continued into the NYC.

Several outstanding projects were raised to the attention of the Members, these included:

·         Rye Villages- this has involved a multi-agency response.

·         Newsletter in Kirkbymoorside – this was mentioned in the previous minute but the priority would be to get this delivered. This would be complimented by a community event taking place in this area on the 25^th April.

·         Several river schemes based with Yorkshire Water, alongside work across the river Derwent.

·         A pump for Fryton – a grant has now been given for this.

·         Outfall at Norton Skate Park – the blockages to this are being cleared by the Environment Agency.  

A question was raised as to the future of the Flood Management Working Party. It was announced that there were not presently any plans to continue the Working Party in NYC as much of the work would now be found at the corporate group level, with much of the community knowledge being presented by the action groups and the Town Councils. This would potentially change but, going into the new authority, that is how it would work.

There being no further business the meeting closed at 7:45pm.