Agenda item

Consider report by Service Director of Assets & Infrastructure.  (Copy attached.)

6.1       With reference to paragraph 8 of the Minute of 19 December 2019, there had been circulated copies of a report by the Service Director Assets and Infrastructure proposing approval of the draft Local Flood Risk Management Plans for the Forth Estuary Local Plan District, the Tweed Local Plan District, and the Solway Local Plan District.  This approval was required to allow the draft plans to be published on 30 July 2021 for public consultation.  The report explained that the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 (FRM Act) required the production of Flood Risk Management Plans covering each Local Plan District (LPD) in Scotland.  Scottish Borders Council’s area fell within 3 of the 14 local plan districts in Scotland.  These were Forth Estuary LPD, Tweed LPD and Solway LPD.  There would be two sets of complementary plans: Flood Risk Management Strategies produced by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), and Local Flood Risk Management Plans produced by Lead Local Authorities.  Scottish Borders Council was the Lead Local Authority for Tweed LPD.  The Flood Risk Management Strategies and Local Flood Risk Management Plans were developed to be complementary through collaborative partnerships between Local Authorities, SEPA and Scottish Water.  The Flood Risk Management Strategies and Local Flood Risk Management Plans would provide a framework for co-ordinating actions across catchments to deal with all sources of flooding.  The plans would be used to ensure long term planning around flooding, and future funding should take delivery of these plans into account.  This would help to target investment in areas where there was the greatest risk of flooding and where communities could receive the greatest benefit.  A public consultation began on 21 December 2020 with SEPA consulting on high-level background information on flood risk for each listed Potentially Vulnerable Area (PVA) across the 14 Local Plan Districts.

6.2       The second part of the consultation, which included more detailed information from SEPA and the Draft Local Flood Risk Management Plans developed by Lead Local Authorities was due to begin on the 21 March and end  on the 21 June 2021.  However, due to the major cyber-attack suffered by SEPA recently this would now, begin on 30 July 2021.  This second part of the consultation would last for the statutory period of 3 months.  This would provide an opportunity for members of the public and other stakeholder organisations to comment on the information that would be included in the Flood Risk Management Strategies and Local Flood Risk Management Plans and would ultimately shape the actions that will be taken to manage flood risk.  An overall delivery plan for the main actions specific to certain areas in the Scottish Borders was contained in Appendix 4 to the report.  Mr Morrison, Flood & Coastal Management Team Leader, gave a detailed presentation on the Plans and answered Members’ questions of specific areas.  Members welcomed the report but expressed concern that SEPA had not yet provided a date when the flood warning system would be recalibrated.  In response to a question on funding of schemes, the Executive Director, Finance and Regulatory Services, advised that Scottish Government provided 80% of the funding but there was currently no provision in the Capital Budget to meet a contribution from the Council.

DECISION

AGREED to approve:-

(a)       the draft Local Flood Risk Management Plan 2022 – 2028 for the Tweed Local Plan District for consultation, as detailed in Appendix 1 to the report;

(b)       the draft Local Flood Risk Management Plan 2022 - 2028 for PVA 02/14/04 Newcastleton in the Solway Local Plan District, for consultation, as detailed in Appendix 2 to the report; and

(c)       the draft Local Flood Risk Management Plan 2022 - 2028 for PVA 02/10/28 Berwickshire Coastin the Forth Estuary Local Plan District for consultation, as detailed in Appendix 3 to the report.

MEMBER

Councillor Marshall re-joined the meeting during consideration of the above item.