Flooding responsibilities

Legistative Changes
Flood Risk Bodies
Responsibilities of Lead Local Flood Authorities  
United Utilities and Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water)
Watercourses - your rights and responsibilities
Private Landowners/Residents
Understanding drainage
Localised Flooding - sewers, drains, gullies and watercourses
Who to call in a flood?

Legistative Changes

The Government has introduced two pieces of flood legislation, the Flood Risk Regulations 2009 and the Flood and Water Management Act 2010.

The Flood Risk Regulations 2009 transposed into domestic law the provisions of the European Commissions Floods Directive (Directive 2007/60/EC) on the assessment and management of flood risks across Eropean Union Member States. The regulations required County Councils and Unitary Local Authorities as the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) to prepare a Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment (PFRA) to help provide a better understanding of flood risk that would form the foundation for future investment and action plans for flood risk management.

Wirral Council as the LLFA for the Wirral area developed its PFRA and submitted it in June 2011 to the Environment Agency who have the overall responsibility for collating and submitting them to Government. A copy of Wirral’s PFRA can be viewed be downloading the document on the right hand side of this page.

The Flood and Water Management Act 2010 was introduced by the Government in response to the Pitt Review into the flooding of 2007 and the Flood Risk Regulations. It gives the Environment Agency a strategic overview role of the management of flood and coastal erosion risk in England. It also gives the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA), responsibility for preparing and putting in place strategies for manageing flood risk from groundwater, surface water and ordinary watercourses in their area.

In addition, the Environment Agency, local authorities and other bodies are given new duties and powers that relate to these responsibilities directly by the Act and by way of amendments made to the Water Resources Act 1991, the Land Drainage Act 1991 and the Coast Protection Act 1949. These new duties and responsibilities are being introduced over an extended period of time which commenced in September/October 2010 but it is likely that by the end of 2012 most will have been enacted.

These include:

• a requirement to develop strategies for local flood risk management;

• to co-operate and share information with powers to request information;

• Responsibility to investigate flooding that it considers necessary or appropriate;

• Duty to maintain a register of structures or features that in its opinion are likely to have a significant effect on flood risk.

• To enable through the Building Regulations the building of flood resilliance and resistance.

• Powers to to carry out works or enforce obligations to carry out works and to consent works on ordinary watercourses.

• A duty to establish a sustainable drainage ‘Approving Body’ to approve sustainable surface water drainage systems before construction commences and then adopt and maintain them upon completion.

Flood Risk Bodies

Defra has national policy responsibility for flood and coastal erosion risk management and provides funding through grant in aid to the Environment Agency which also administers grant for capital projects to Local Authorities and Internal Drainage Boards. Defra does not build or manage flood defences nor direct the authorities on which specific projects to undertake.

The Environment Agency is a Non-Departmental Public Body of Defra and generally supervises all matters relating to flood defence including:

• Building and maintaining defences and other management measures on designated

• Main Rivers and Critical Ordinary Watercourses

• Flood forecasting and warning

• Improving public awareness of flood risk

Lead Local Flood Authorities are responsible for:

• Managing local flood risk through the new duties and responsibilities, including the development of strategies and action plans

• planning for emergencies, including flooding events

• dealing with the consequences of flooding such as humanitarian assistance, emergency housing and clear up operations

• ensuring that defences on ordinary watercourses, where required, are built and maintained.

United Utilities and Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water) are the sewerage and water undertakers responsible for development and maitenance of the public sewerage system in the Wirral. Fortunately, only a small number of properties within this area are affected each year by sewer flooding.

If your home is flooded by foul water, please contact United Utilities on 0845 7462200 or Dwr Cymru on 0800 0853968 if they are your sewerage and water supplier.

If you have suffered internal or external foul flooding to your property, they can:

• remove any excess flood water

• collect and remove any solid waste

• clean and disinfect all affected floor and wall areas

Other Flooding Responsibilities

Watercourses - your rights and responsibilities

If you own land adjoining a watercourse, you have certain rights and responsibilities. In legal terms you are a 'riparian owner'. (A watercourse is any natural or artificial channel through which water flows, such as a river, brook, beck, or mill stream.)

Some of your responsibilities include:

• maintaining watercourse beds and banks;

• allowing the flow of water to pass without obstruction;

• controlling invasive alien species such as Japanese knotweed.

Your rights have been established in common law for many years. However there are some circumstances in which these rights may be affected by other law.

Download a guide to the rights and responsibilites of riverside occupation

• Living on the edge

There are also activities for which you will need permission from your local authority (Ordinary Watercourse) or the Environment Agency (Main Rivers). These can include bank protection works and the construction of culverts, bridges or outfalls. Download Ordinary Watercourse guidance and application form.

Private Landowners/Residents

Residents are responsible for looking after and maintaining their own gullies and drains and to make sure that they are clear from obstruction.

Understanding drainage

Responsibilities

Determining who is responsible is not always straightforward. Your property drainage system will normally be made up of at least two of the three main types of drainage. These are called drains, private sewers and public sewers.

A drain serves only one property and is the responsibility of the property owner until it joins a public sewer.

When the drains of two or more properties join, from that point on it is classed as a private sewer. It is then the joint responsibility of all the owners of the properties, which are connected to it to cleanse and maintain it, until it joins a public sewer.

However, from October 2011, following the introduction of new legislation, drains once they pass beyond the curtlidge of a property will be designated as public sewers as will all private sewers as described above.

Responsibility for cleansing and maintaining public sewers rests with the relevant sewerage and water company which in Wirral is either United Utilities or Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water).

In summary, property owners are responsible for individual property drains up to the curtiledge of the property and the Sewerage and Water Company is responsible for all public sewers.

Localised Flooding - sewers, drains, gullies and watercourses

If a highway or footway gully or a watercourse are causing flooding, please report it to Streetscene (0151 606 2004) and Wirral Council will then make every effort to investigate and if possible, resolve the situation or identify the responsible person or organisation.

If the public sewer is flooding, please report it to the relevant Sewerage and water company, for your area (United Utilities or Dwr Cymru [Welsh Water]), as responsibility to deal with flooding from public sewers, particularly foul flooding rests with them. However, in many locations the gullies are connected to the public sewers and initially this can sometimes make it difficult to identify the prime cause of the flooding.

Flooding from private drains and private gullies, eg, in unadopted roads and back entries, is the responsibility of the property owners served by them and they will need to resolve this themselves, usually by employing a private company to sort out any problems.

Who to call in a flood?

From individual drain and private sewers – property owner’s responsibility.

• From a public sewer (foul water) – United Utilities: 08457 462200 or Welsh Water (Dwr Cymru) 0800 0853968
• From a highway, footway gully or ordinary watercourse – Wirral Council Streetscene: 0151 606 2004
• Main rivers – Environment Agency Floodline: 0845 9881188