Call for Evidence on Flooding and Coastal Erosion

Overview

This call for evidence focusses on some specific flood and coastal erosion policy questions that the government would like additional evidence on. They are:

• What we understand by the term “resilience” – asking how the term resilience is currently used, and whether the different aspects of resilience could usefully be brought together into one overall concept.
• Describing outcomes, driving action and monitoring progress – seeking examples of cases where metrics have been used effectively to achieve an overarching outcome, and information on the advantages and disadvantages of using composite metrics to describe, drive and monitor flood and coast outcomes.
• Adapting to coastal change – seeking information about what coast protection authorities have done to join up decisions about manging the coastline with wider plans and decisions for the area, and examples of whether councils have used, or tried to use powers to fund specific coastal erosion works or to create Coastal Change Management Areas.
• Corporation tax relief for business contributions – asking how businesses have used the provision for businesses to receive corporation tax relief on their contributions to government funded flood and coast projects.
• Local funding initiatives for flood risk management – seeking examples of local initiatives funded from sources other than the public sector and what could be done to help these types of initiatives succeed.
• Developer contributions – asking about the barriers and enablers to the use of developer contributions to ensure developments are safe for their lifetime, and what arrangements are in place for maintaining flood assets in new developments. 
• Managing financial risks from flooding – asking about how organisations manage the financial risks associated with flooding, in the context of climate change.

Why your views matter

Over the coming decades, flood and coastal erosion risks will increase as a result of population growth and climate change. Rainfall patterns will change, extreme weather events will become more common and sea levels will rise.

To ensure that we can continue to manage these risks effectively, the government will, by the end of 2019, set out its policy direction to better prepare the country for future flooding and coastal erosion – making the most of the opportunities for wider economic, social and environmental benefits in our towns, countryside and coast.

We will do this through a government policy statement on flooding and coastal erosion, a national infrastructure strategy and the decisions made in a spending review.

This call for evidence is an opportunity for you to provide evidence which will inform some specific aspects of government policy on flooding and coastal erosion, and influence the development of the government policy statement on flooding and coastal erosion.

What happens next

The government will carefully consider responses to the Call for Evidence and will use them, along with other information sources, to inform the development of the government policy statement on flood and coastal erosion and national infrastructure strategy.