Nathalie’s flood risk recommendations approved by Scrutiny committee
I am really pleased that my recommendations for improving the Council’s flood risk response have been approved by the Overview & Scrutiny Committee. The officers will now prepare an Action Plan and it will be up to the Mayor to decide which recommendations are implemented.
Since May 2024, I have been honoured to serve as the Scrutiny Lead for Environment & Climate Emergency. This means that I have responsibilities and privileges to scrutinise what work the council is doing within this portfolio area.
My aim is to provide a ‘critical friend’ challenge to the political leadership and work with the non-political council officers to shine a light on areas which might need more attention.
Background to the project
My interest in this area is informed by my academic background in environmental issues. I know that we are experiencing more intense and less predictable rainfall in this area of the country, which increases the risk of flooding.
In January 2024 this risk became a reality when Tower Hamlets residents on Fish Island, Hackney Wick, experienced flooding when the Lee Navigation canal overtopped following heavy rainfall. I was concerned about this and other flooding events I’d heard about from elsewhere in London. I requested a briefing from officers about why the Hackney Wick flood happened and more broadly how we responded to the risks of floods.
The briefing explained that the flood in Fish Island happened because the Canal and River Trust’s infrastructure did not work as it was intended, meaning the sluice gate stayed closed and the water backed up behind the Old Ford Lock.
The briefing also highlighted that, although the Council is meeting all of our statutory responsibilities, there was scope to take our flood risk response to the next level. Because of the serious effect that flooding can have on residents and businesses, I was convinced that it was important to make recommendations to the administration to further improve the service.
Investigation and evidence gathering
After the initial briefing, I conducted two site visits with the help of council officers.
The first site visit was to Derbyshire Street in Bethnal Green, an area that has several sustainable drainage interventions (SuDS). SuDS are designed to collect rainwater and prevent or slow the entry of water into the sewer system and are essential for such a built-up area like Tower Hamlets which has a finite sewerage capacity. A big part of our engineers’ work in the council is spent ensuring that planning applications are compliant with our sustainable drainage policies. The interventions at Derbyshire Street are used as a showcase to any reluctant developers to show that many interventions can be installed even on a small site.
The second site visit focused on Fish Island, the area that flooded in January 2024. The officers explained the cause of flooding which was that the sluice gates on the lock failed to open, thus preventing the excess water from flowing down the canal. They highlighted that this type of flooding event, fluvial flooding, is the responsibility of the Environment Agency to prevent, and therefore the funds for upkeep must come from them. Nevertheless, Tower Hamlets is the principal flood authority for our area, and we have a responsibility to protect our residents from flooding. Staff from the Canal and River Trust (CRT) who happened to be on site at the time explained to us that they do not have the funds to keep up their infrastructure to a level that would have prevented this flood. They also explained that it took a few hours for their on-call ranger to arrive and manually open the sluice gate. The flooding happened due to the delay in response. We also visited the homes flooded and spoke to the residents living in the buildings which flooded which included homes and studios. The officers explained that, ordinarily, these residents would have information from the council about the fact that they live in a flood zone and what to do in the case of a flood. However, the buildings flooded were registered as creative studios rather than living places, therefore the residents didn’t receive the information they should have done.
Finally, I had a meeting with an external engineering consultancy which works in the area of flood risk management, Metis Consulting. They gave me an independent appraisal of the council’s flood risk response and provided some really useful proposals for improvements.
Committee meeting and process
As Scrutiny Lead for the Environment and Climate Emergency, one of my duties is to attend monthly Overview & Scrutiny meetings. The Chair agreed for this item to be discussed at one of our regular meetings. The meeting took place in December 2024 and members of the committee took this opportunity to question officers and the cabinet member about their response to the flooding incident, how we are reducing the risk of future floods as well as our readiness to cope with future flooding events if they happen.
You can watch the meeting here: https://towerhamlets.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/937520/start_time/0
And the presentation and documents are at Agenda item 8.1 here: https://democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=327&MId=15339
Conclusions and report writing
Through my investigation and discussions, I came to a number of conclusions.
- I saw that, no matter how much we do, we will have flooding in future due to the nature of our area and the changes in weather patterns. But my vision is that when flooding events happen I want the local authority to be confident that we have done everything in our power to prevent or ease the impacts of the flooding.
- Flooding, despite the recent flooding event in Fish Island, was not high on the agenda for the political administration, nor the senior leadership team and my instigation of the project directly led to the decision makers and officers engaging and getting to grips with this topic.
- We have some strategy documents but they are out of date, especially the assets register (it’s important to note that our publishing an updated Flood Risk Strategy is dependent on the GLA strategy which is close to finalisation).
- The engineering officers in the council who are working on the compliance of planning applications and coordinating the gulley cleaning operation are committed, hard-working and very smart people working hard to protect all of us. However, there is potential for the workload of the team to increase with a new proposal by the government, and the capacity of the team could be increased to create time to look for grant funding and other opportunities.
- The council didn’t have any provision to immediately respond to the flooding event in January 2024 because it happened outside of normal working hours. Instead, officers were only alerted and able to attend on the Monday morning after.
- There is a comprehensive programme to clean the roads and gulleys, however this work is done without a strategic map of our assets which identifies the area of highest risk. Nor is there any technology utilised to enhance our understanding of where risks might be.
- There appears to be not much internal coordination around flood risk, and the relationships with key strategic partners such as CRT, the Environment Agency and Thames Water, could be improved with regular contact.
I also made a number of recommendations:
- Publish an up-to-date Flood Risk Management Strategy document to provide a solid strategic basis for flood risk work. In parallel update the Asset Register.
- Onboard more engineers to manage the increased workload responding to planning applications and improve the service’s resilience. This is of particular importance if and when schedule 3 (a provision which would increase the responsibilities on local authorities to approve SuDS) is implemented.
- Develop a structured and targeted program including both new work and maintenance of existing assets. This should include: Mapping areas of drainage risk and opportunity; A targeted CCTV survey of existing drainage; Installing targeted Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDs) in high-risk areas; Installing targeted gully sensors integrated with our central management system to monitor silt levels and detect potential water surcharges; Targeted replacement of existing gully covers with cycle-friendly designs enhancing cyclist safety.
- Ensure our existing standby service for highways during out-of-hours periods is appropriately resourced and briefed to respond promptly to flooding issues.
- Consider running an internal flood risk group to meet regularly to share information, manage risk, and identify possible opportunities for Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) within parks or schools. This group could include waste and cleansing, park services, highways, and schools.
- Set up a regular engagement sequence with external partners such as Thames Water, CRT and the Environment Agency.
Next steps
My recommendations were approved by the Overview & Scrutiny Committee at our meeting in January. You can watch the meeting here: https://towerhamlets.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/937520/start_time/0
And the report is published here: https://democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/documents/s248146/Report%20-%20Flood%20Risk%20Management%20-%2028%20Jan%2025.pdf
Our approval of this report instructs officers to create an Action Plan which will be presented to Cabinet and the Mayor will which of the recommendations to implement. I will update this post as the recommendations make their way towards being implemented.
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