Twenty-eighth Report Adapting Institutions to Climate Change Cm ...

Chapter 4
4.91
47 During the course of our 26th study on the urban environment, we heard that there was a
shortage of planning officers and we recommended that local authority planning departments
be adequately resourced and organised to maximise environmental benefits. The resourcing
of planning departments was again highlighted during the current study. Evidence from our
workshop on the role of the planning system in adaptation suggested that “the planning service
was not perceived to be a priority area within the management team of a local authority, and it
therefore lacks the resources to deliver to its full potential”, and that planning budgets are often
reduced in the face of pressures from other statutory and ‘front-line’ services such as education
and housing, despite the crucial role of the planning system in climate change adaptation (see
also Chapter 3). 48
Distribution of costs
4.92 The burdens of climate change will, as discussed above (4.33-4.34), be unevenly distributed. This
applies generally but is most acutely the case in respect of flooding and coastal protection. Questions
of cost distribution include both how public resources for risk management are allocated and the
response when risk management interventions, such as hard flood defences, fail or are withdrawn.
These two parts of the dilemma seem currently to be considered separately. For example, we have
had evidence that suggests that ‘protect or abandon’ have been straightforward alternatives in the
coastal zone. 49
4.93
4.94
4.95
The provision of flood and coastal defences is a discretionary power, rather than a duty, and
the process for exercising this discretion, and allocating resources, is dominated by cost–benefit
analysis (4.36-4.42). Valuation is not limited to a narrow calculation of infrastructure value, since
Treasury rules allow for consideration of social wellbeing as well as distributional impacts. We
note that the Defra consultation document on coastal change policy says that the Environment
Agency is introducing a new policy statement on the subject, encouraging “the assessment of a
greater range of benefits and options” from the provision of flood and coastal defences. 50
The scale for decision making on these powers is obviously controversial. Implementation is likely
to be local, and the frustration of local people who feel excluded from the process emphasises the
need for a clear local voice in decision making. 51 But some broader national process is necessary,
both to provide adequate funds and to distribute those funds in a sensible way. Under the Flood and
Water Management Bill, the Environment Agency and the Welsh Ministers are to have a central
strategic role, developing a flood and coastal erosion strategy for England and Wales respectively.
Although some European nations (for example, the Netherlands) compensate property owners
in respect of those rare cases of the catastrophic failure of dykes, Government policy in this
country is not to provide direct compensation for coastal erosion or flooding. 52 The Commission
notes that losses from coastal erosion and flooding do not necessarily lie where they fall. Beyond
emergency relief provided during flooding, 53 and the ordinary security (for example, re-housing)
provided by the welfare state, the main existing mechanisms for redistributing costs are private
or public law liabilities and insurance; both focus on property losses rather than broader impacts.
Further discussion of the legal aspects of flooding and coastal erosion is provided in Box 4G.
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