100's of critical sites vulnerable to flooding

Serious concerns over the flooding risk of hundreds of critical sites

Hundreds of UK power substations and water treatment plants are potentially at risk from flooding, a confidential government study suggests. The BBC has reported that it has seen the conclusions of research commissioned after the devastating floods of 2007.

The study undertaken in the aftermath of the summer's event suggests that the UK is far more likely to see similar events. The report states that there are hundreds of critical sites which are seriously vulnerable to the effects of flooding that would extend the impact to millions of people across the UK. It continues saying that the risks from weather and other natural hazards are rising and are predicted to rise further in the near future. It concludes that it would "be imprudent to rest on the basis that events on the lines of those which happened last summer were so infrequent as to reply on a reactive response alone".

Officials are concerned over the speed of the events with the summer flooding rapidly hitting communities and seriously affecting business and disrupting key local services. In some parts of the UK over a third of those affected are still in temporary accommodation and overall the direct cost of the summer deluges is estimated to exceed £3billion. This report come ahead of the official review by Sir Michael Pitt into last summer's floods.

The Continuity Forum has met with the review team to present by research and information on the levels of preparation and the issues affecting the preparation by the public sector, key utilities and business. His inquiry - due to publish its final report next month - has already found that more than 1,000 electricity and water works were affected, along with 12 sections of railway line and eight stretches of motorway.

The Continuity Forum has urged the Pitt Review team to recommend to government that Public services are protected from disruption through better use of BCM by both government and business groups, particularly those providing our core Utility services. It is believed that the report seen by the BBC is also recommending that the government calls on companies, regulators and ministers to act. Flood defences Last summers floods saw about 13 people killed and damage directly affecting 44,600 homes, 7,100 businesses were flooded. Estimates do vary on the cost of the events but it is pretty clear that their were direct costs of over £3bn.

Over the past 10 years flood defence budgets have been consistently reduced, recent announcements promise more funds over the next three years, but these are likely to be considerably less than that required with estimates of the cost of strengthening the flood resistance of key sites running into the region of £1bn. The near-loss of the switching station at Walham, near Gloucester, in July last year caused considerable alarm with at one stage COBRA ordering the preparation of plans to evacuate the areas that would have been affected. Walham provides electricity for 500,000 homes and businesses in Gloucestershire and acts as a key relay for supplies to south Wales. Only the emergency work provided at the last minute with the support of the military kept the site from being flooded.

The report cited by the BBC states that hundreds of other critical sites across the UK are vulnerable to similar threat. "I think many of us were surprised by the degree to which critical infrastructure was affected" Sir Michael Pitt The Walham site is now defended by extensive flood defences although one is forced to ask why this was not done sooner as the information on the threat was freely available from the Environment Agency. The flooding of a treatment works, at Mythe, also in Gloucestershire, at the same time led to 350,000 people losing water supplies for up to three weeks. Sir Michael Pitt says "There is no doubt that the network was vulnerable, that the loss of Walham would have been a major issue and many hundreds of thousands of people would have had their power affected. "I think many of us were surprised by the degree to which critical infrastructure was affected. "Tens of thousands of people were out of their homes, thousands of businesses were directly affected, but I honestly believe that we could have been a great deal worse." Spokesmen for the industry associations representing the electricity network and water companies said the summer floods had served as a wake-up call. They added that urgent research into the risks was under way - and in many cases further flood defence work had been carried out.

However the government's Environment Select Committee has said the infrastructure to deal with the same scale of flooding seen last year is in "an unclear and chaotic state". Ministers, the committee said, had repeatedly suggested that the £800m a year for flood management by 2010/2011 would allow the government to deal effectively with future cases of flooding. But a report has warned the settlement for flood defences made under the Comprehensive Spending Review was "far less impressive under close analysis". Continuity Forum Comment Currently the depth and level of planning for events is far too variable and fragmented, this is especially worrying when one considers that these Companies, responsible for our infrastructure, are specifically cited in the Civil Contingencies Act (2004) as Category 2 responders and therefore should be far more aware and diligent.

Yet the issue is how should this diligence be demonstrated. BS25999 was not in place at the time of the CCA's formulation and therefore could not be cited as the 'baseline' for business continuity which does feature as a duty on organisations. This 'loophole' needs to be closed. We all know is impossible to fully eliminate the risks associated with flooding, but with careful planning and structured investment substantial progress could be made to reduce the vulnerability of our homes and organisations to serious damage and disruption. In our submission to the Pitt review we have called for all public Utilities to be required to demonstrate their resilience against all forms of disruption by legislation. By requiring that these organisations meet or exceed the British Standard for Business Continuity (BS25999) the planning would improve and provide our communities with greater resilience against disruption of all types, not just flooding.

It is interesting to note that some within these industries are said to prefer the lower PAS55 standard for 'Life Cycle Asset Management' as the preferred model to ensure their services are maintained. In our opinion this is completely unacceptable and points more to concerns over the costs to the companies rather than the effects on communities and business. We are hopeful that this growing pressure on government to boost the regulatory or indeed legislative requirements will generate change and we have urged both the Pitt review team and government to formalise the adoption of BS25999 by 'key partners' to both central and local in all areas of activity.

The Financial argument will though doubtless rear its head but here the balance sheet for the summer floods is simple - £1bn in Flood defences to mitigate many future problems against £3bn in direct costs for just last summers flooding alone. If this argument was to be logically extended thorough the prudent and widespread adoption of BCM practices across the UK the balance sheet for ALL events would be at least similarly impressive if not more so.

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