Joe Ollech reports on flooding & flood management
- Where does the responsibility of flood defences lie?
- EA control coupled with local obligations.
We have recently enjoyed the warmest early May bank holiday on record, the previous high having been set in 1995. Concerns about global warming are well known, and although the UK may not share the most extreme events that are predicted to emerge, nevertheless, it is fair to say that over the past decade there have been increasing signs of shifts in the weather patterns that may become more or less regular features of a larger climatic shift.
A particularly obvious aspect of this has been the incidence of several large-scale winter flood events in recent years. Readers will recall the wet winters that have particularly affected areas such as Gloucestershire (2007), the Somerset Levels, (2013–14), Yorkshire, Scotland and Northern Ireland (2015–16), Lancashire (2017) and elsewhere.
Responsibility
In many cases flooding results from rivers or watercourses overflowing their banks, and the question of where responsibility rests for flood defence is often an important one. Ownership of riparian land brings with it duties
