Posted on June 20, 2016
By WMNHFinch, The Herald
Council tax payers could be asked to help foot the bill for flood protection in Somerset. The Somerset Rivers Authority, set up to tackle flooding after the devastating winter of 2013-14 , could be given the power to ask for a share of council tax under proposed legislation.
Cllr John Osman, chairman of the SRA, said: “This is very good news. It offers Somerset a long term local funding solution for tackling flooding problems across the county and getting the extra protection and resilience that we need for Somerset’s people, businesses and environment.”
The authority said it has been told by two Cabinet ministers – Greg Clark at the Department for Communities and Local Government and Liz Truss at the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs – that details will be worked out over the summer ahead of a proposal to introduce legislation to parliament this Autumn. It would enable Somerset Rivers Authority to be established as a separate legal entity so it can raise its own funding from council tax payers in Somerset under precepting powers.
One route to legislation could be through the Local Growth and Jobs Bill, it has been suggested.
The SRA was set up to deliver higher standards of flood protection than would be funded nationally, and to create better flood protection and resilience against further flooding through joint planning and delivery. It was launched in January 2015 to play a key role in flood protection for the county after hundreds of homes and businesses were caught up in the devastating floods of 2013 and 2014.
The SRA is run by a board of partners from the five District Councils, Somerset County Council, the Environment Agency, the Parrett and Axe Brue Internal Drainage Boards, the Wessex Regional Flood & Coastal Committee and Natural England. It was set up with interim funding of £2.7m for the financial year 2015/16.
This year, the Government gave Somerset County Council and the five district councils the power to raise council tax by up to 1.25% to help fund the authority with a ‘shadow precept’, pending legislation enabling it to become a full precepting body.
It is not known how much householders will pay if the legislation goes ahead, but under the shadow precept this year, each band D property paid £14.64 a year to support the SRA.
The county council and district councils in West Somerset, Taunton Deane, South Somerset and Mendip voted for the 1.25%.Sedgemoor chose to contribute an equivalent sum from its reserves. Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium gave £20,000, making a total locally-raised sum of £2,777,409.Nearly £2.5million is being used to fund 34 schemes and six key projects.
But existing funding is not enough to cover the county’s needs, warns the SRA.
Priorities this year include dredging and monitoring the maintenance and repairs of rivers, watercourses, sluices, trash screens and bridges, maintenance of highways drainage systems, improved enforcement to ensure privately-owned drains are managed and real-time flood alert systems. The SRA is plans for six key projects, including contribution to a £4m scheme in Cannington near Bridgwater to protect 200 houses and upgrade Wirral Park pumping station in Glastonbury. Successful maintenance dredging along a 2. 2km stretch of the River Parrett was completed in March.
It was the biggest dredge undertaken by the Parrett Internal Drainage Board, partner of the SRA.Peter Maltby, Parrett IDB chairman, said: “I’m proud. We’ve done a lot to maintain the benefits of the £6million dredging of the Parrett and Tone that was done after the awful floods in 2014.”
The Environment Agency, as an SRA partner,is now overseeing new £2.14million dredging works downstream of Northmoor pumping station.
Source: The Herald
