Foreword by Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) Chair Cllr Mike Stanton to the SRA Annual Report 2022-23
I’m pleased to introduce our eighth annual report since Somerset Rivers Authority’s launch in January 2015. Our main purpose is to give Somerset an extra level of flood protection and resilience. So far, we have enabled more than 250 projects to go ahead. These have reduced flood risks, improved natural and built environments across Somerset, and helped people get on with their lives more easily and safely. This new report provides details of dozens of Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) activities county-wide between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023. They range from reshaping river systems to resurfacing 13 metres of track. Different problems are approached in different ways because different parts of Somerset have different needs. What all SRA activities – and all SRA partners – share is a determination to respond to people’s local priorities and together get more done.
During the devastating flooding that hit Somerset in 2013-14, a 20 Year Flood Action Plan was produced. The SRA emerged out of this Plan and now oversees it. The five workstreams featured in this report reflect the Plan’s objectives.
The SRA is now working on renewing that Plan in light of experiences across Somerset since 2014, including the evident effects of climate change and the floods of January 2023. I know from speaking to many people that these floods caused disruption, a lot of worry, and significant damage to a few properties. The situation was however better than it might have been, and works funded by Somerset Rivers Authority since 2015 did reduce flood risks and effects. Rainfall and flooding patterns were obviously not the same as they were in 2014, and investigations are continuing into exactly what happened and why.
The River Parrett’s capacity to carry flood water has been maintained by the SRA and its partners through water injection dredging in recent years. In January this year the dredging vessel Borr removed more silt that it ever has before, and was there for outfall-clearing so that pumps could be set up. Hundreds of natural flood management works over the years have also helped to slow the flow of water down through catchments across Somerset.
Partners in the SRA during 2022-2023 were Somerset County Council, the four district councils (Mendip, Sedgemoor, Somerset West and Taunton, and South Somerset), the Axe Brue and Parrett Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs), the Environment Agency, Natural England, and the Wessex Regional Flood and Coastal Committee. Since 1 April 2023, the five councils have been replaced by the single new Somerset Council, from whom the SRA still gets £3million a year through council tax, and the IDBs contribute £20,000.
Few public sector organisations give as much detail about what they do with their funding as the SRA does. And there is even more online here on the SRA’s website. I trust that you find this report useful and informative. Please get in touch with us if you have any comments or questions – and do look out for the public sessions to be held later this year about a revised Flood Action Plan.
Cllr Mike Stanton, Chair of Somerset Rivers Authority