1. The National Infrastructure Assessment: understanding what it means for flood management and climate resilience
Matt Crossman
November 2018

2. The National Infrastructure Commission
“The National Infrastructure Commission is a permanent body which will provide the government with impartial, expert advice on major long-term infrastructure challenges.
The objectives of the Commission are to:
support sustainable economic growth across all regions of the UK;
improve competitiveness and
improve quality of life
“The National Infrastructure Commission commits to delivering the following products and services:
A National Infrastructure Assessment once in every Parliament, setting out the NIC’s assessment of long-term infrastructure needs with recommendations to the government”
Scope covers: transport; digital; energy; water & waste water; flood risk; and solid waste. Plus interdependencies and cross-cutting issues

3. The National Infrastructure Assessment
The Commission’s plan of action for the UK’s infrastructure over the next years
Recommendations include:
Nationwide full fibre broadband by 2033
Half of power provided by renewables by 2030
Three quarters of plastic packaging recycled by 2030
£43 billion of transport funding for regional cities
Preparing for 100% electric vehicle sales by 2030
Ensuring resilience to extreme drought
A national standard of flood resilience for all communities by 2050
Alongside these, better design and more efficient funding and financing can save money, reduce risk and create a legacy that looks good and works well.
The government has committed to respond to the Commission’s recommendations and to adopt agreed recommendations as government policy.

4. Managing flood risk
“While it will never be possible to prevent all flooding, the current approach is too piecemeal and too reactive. Government should ensure that all communities are resilient, so they are able to cope with, and recover from, flooding. There should be a long term national programme: resilience cannot be increased everywhere overnight and the extra funding needed will only become available gradually. But a long term strategy, with long term funding, can deliver a national standard by 2050.”
“The Commission recommends that government should set out a strategy to deliver a nationwide standard of resilience to flooding with an annual likelihood of 0.5 per cent by 2050 where this is feasible. A higher standard of 0.1 per cent should be provided for densely populated areas where the costs per household are lower.”

5. Business as usual ?
Increase in number of homes with 0.5% or more annual chance of flooding 2 degrees, low population 4 degrees, high population

6. Nationwide standards ?
New analysis shows costs and benefits of different standards for: • major cities (major and minor conurbations) • other cities and large towns (towns above 10,000 people) • rural towns (3,000-10,000 people) • villages and hamlets (fewer than 3,000 people)

7. Costs for different resilience standards
Average annual capital costs for 2 degrees, low population

8. Comparison of costs and benefits

9. Fiscal remit

11. Delivering the strategy
The Commission recommends that, to deliver the strategy:
By the end of 2019, government should put in place a rolling 6 year funding programme in line with the funding profile set out by the Commission. This should enable efficient planning and delivery of projects and address the risks from all sources of flooding.
The Environment Agency should update plans for all catchments and coastal cells in England before the end of These should identify how risk can be managed most effectively using a combination of measures including green and grey infrastructure, spatial planning and property level measures.
Water companies and local authorities should work together to publish joint plans to manage surface water flood risk by 2022.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and planning authorities should ensure that from 2019 all new development is resilient to flooding with an annual likelihood of 0.5 per cent for its lifetime and does not increase risk elsewhere.

12. “Surface water flooding is significant and there has been little progress in the decade since the Pitt review. Further work is needed urgently.”

13. A brief history of surface water management
Apr 2004 Foresight Future Flooding Mar 2005 Making Space for Water Jun 2008 Pitt Review Mar 2010 SWMP technical guidance Apr 2010 Flood & Water Management Act Jan st Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence Jan st Climate Change Risk Assessment Jul nd Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence Sep 2016 National Flood Resilience Review Jan nd Climate Change Risk Assessment Jan 2017 Local Flood Risk Management Action Plan Jun 2017 Post Election Priorities Statement Jul st National Infrastructure Assessment Jul 2018 Surface Water Management: An Action Plan Sep 2018 DWMP Framework