Draft National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England

The Environment Agency has a statutory duty to develop, maintain, apply and monitor a national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy. This is a requirement of Section 7 of the Flood and Water Management Act (FWMA) 2010. The act also lists what the strategy must cover, states it requires public consultation and the Secretary of State must approve it.

The Environment Agency published the last national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy in May 2011.

The Environment Agency is now consulting with the public, partners and businesses on the Draft National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England.

The draft strategy sets out a national ambition for England but one that can work for every place. Every place is different and there is no one size fits all solution to flood and coastal resilience. The only way of doing this is to put people at the heart of decision making. The draft strategy applies to all sources of flooding and coastal change.

We aim to publish the final national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy for England in 2020. This is a key commitment outlined in the government’s 25 year environment plan. It sets out how together we can reduce the risk of harm to people, the environment and the economy from flooding and coastal change.

The consultation will run for 8 weeks. Its focus is on what we can do as a nation over the next 10 to 30 years to help support the longer term ambitions for change needed by 2100. We are calling on people, business and partners to play their part by letting us have their views.

Strategic Environmental Assessment

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a process that makes sure the environment is considered during the development of certain ‘plans and programmes’. The SEA environmental report presents the results of this process. It:

• explains how we took the environment into account in the development of the draft strategy
• describes the assessment of the significant environmental effects of the draft strategy
• outlines measures to address potential negative effects and opportunities to enhance positive effects

Habitats Regulations Assessment

A draft Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) has been prepared for the draft National Flood and Coastal Erosion Strategy for England to accord with the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. The draft HRA applies a precautionary approach to assess the potential impacts of the draft strategy on protected European sites. A final HRA will be prepared and published alongside the final strategy.

SEA scoping report

In September 2018 we ran a consultation on the SEA scoping report. It consulted on the environmental issues to be assessed during the development of the draft strategy. The SEA environmental report summaries the outcome of this consultation. It also gives an outline of the responses received and how we have considered them in the SEA and the development of the draft strategy.