Viewpoint
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Viewpoint Summer
- News-in-brief
- Travel disruption - your rights
- MoJ reforms for personal injury claims
- Flood and Water Management Act 2010
- Government decision on pleural plaques
- Insurance and risk
- Taking the fall - the real cost of slips, trips and falls
- Are you losing money to toll fraud?
- Market News
- Time for change?
- Life begins at 40.....
- 40th anniversary - part II
- Industry focus
- Empty threats - are your unoccupied buildings at risk?
Flood and Water Management Act 2010
On 8th April 2010, The Flood and Water Management Act 2010 received Royal Assent. A key aim of the Act is to improve the management of flood risk, following severe flooding that caused widespread damage and devastation. The ABI recently reported that the cost of November’s floods in Cumbria is now more than £200 million; 60% of this cost relates to business damage.
ABI Director of General Insurance and Health repeated his support for the Act at the end of January,
“We cannot control the weather, but we can minimise its impact. People who live and work in the region, and throughout the UK, need to be better protected against the rising flood risk. That is why the sooner that the Flood and Water Management Bill becomes law, and is implemented the better.”
DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) describes the key areas covered by the Act on their web site.
• To give the Environment Agency an overview of all flood and coastal erosion risk management and unitary and county councils the lead in managing the risk of all local floods.
• To introduce an improved risk based approach to reservoir safety.
• To encourage the uptake of sustainable drainage systems by removing the automatic right to connect to sewers and providing for unitary and county councils to adopt SUDS for new developments and redevelopments.
• To widen the list of uses of water that water companies can control during periods of water shortage, and enable Government to add to and remove uses from the list.
• To enable water and sewerage companies to operate concessionary schemes for community groups on surface water drainage charges.
• To reduce ‘bad debt’ in the water industry by amending the Water Industry Act 1991 to provide a named customer and clarify who is responsible for paying the water bill.
• To make it easier for water and sewerage companies to develop and implement social tariffs where companies consider there is a good cause to do so, and in light of guidance that will be issued by the SoS following a full public consultation.
For more information click here to visit the DEFRA website.
Next Steps
To discuss the issues raised in this article or for further information, please speak to your usual Perkins Slade contact. Alternatively you can call 0121 698 8000 and ask to speak to a member of the Corporate team or email corporate@perkins-slade.com.
