Agency attacked as rising cost sinks flood protection scheme

The decision was announced last week that the long-awaited project to protect one of North Yorkshire’s worst flooding blackspots had been halted due to the soaring costs.

The announcement came less than a month after Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman visited Pickering and paid tribute to the work to protect the town, which has endured major floods from as long ago as the 1930s.

Ryedale District Council’s leader Keith Knaggs met Environment Agency officials earlier this week to discuss what could be done to protect Pickering from deluges.

He claimed the agency had failed to keep government officials fully briefed about the problems with the project to protect 60 properties by building earth embankments to hold back up to 18m gallons of water from Pickering Beck.

He said Environment Agency officials had admitted they had known since the end of March that the scheme was under grave threat – more than a month-and-a-half before Ms Spelman’s visit.

The costs soared from £1.3m to £3.2m due to strict regulations applying under the Reservoirs Act 1975 as well as the complex nature of the site.

Coun Knaggs said: “The Environment Agency admitted that they had known since the end of March that the panel engineer had declined to sign off the agency’s solution which the council agreed to fund in February.

“They sought a second opinion which emerged on May 31, but how realistic was it to expect that another engineer with the same liability problem would reach a different conclusion? Was Ms Spelman fully briefed? I think not.”

Talks are continuing between the council and the Environment Agency to establish how available funding can be used to improve Pickering’s defences.

But Coun Knaggs added: “The Environment Agency will pay a significant price in media embarrassment for failing to take its partners into its confidence.

“Right now this problem does not look soluble at local level. It is supposed to be a pilot project which will serve as a model for other communities up and down the land. It doesn’t look much of a model at the moment.”

Problems emerged when the scheme needed to be classed as a Category A reservoir – the highest standard – because of the risk to public safety if it were to fail.

The higher classification combined with the major engineering challenges led to the costs soaring.

The Environment Agency was forced to ask Ryedale District Council for another £150,000 in February and last week’s announcement was greeted by a public outcry when the full extent of the escalating costs emerged.

An Environment Agency spokeswoman was adamant the Government had been kept up to speed with developments.

She claimed Ms Spelman had paid tribute to other aspects of the Slowing the Flow project, which has been heralded as a model to help to protect other communities nationally as nature is being used to combat flooding.

It represents a major shift from engineering solutions back to techniques such as planting new woodland to slow run-off.

The Environment Agency spokeswoman stressed that these elements had attracted praise from Ms Spelman rather than the troubled flood storage work but she admitted that the reservoir scheme had been a key element of the overall Slowing the Flow project before it was shelved.

She added: “We did not know for certain that the reservoir project would have to be halted until last week. We explored every available option to see if the scheme could continue, but unfortunately we have had to take the decision due to the rising costs.”