11/00713/F - Borough Council of King's Lynn & West Norfolk

It will be down to Norfolk County Council as the determining authority to carry out an
appropriate assessment under the Nature Conservation (Natural Habitats &c) Regulations
1994 to assess whether or not the impact upon Roydon Common SAC and other such sites
is acceptable. Given that the ES does not appear to address the sensitivity of the Common
to acid deposition, it is difficult see how an appropriate assessment could conclude that the
impact is acceptable at the moment.
Flood Risk
The ES states that the site is in Flood Zone 1 and at low risk of flooding. This statement is
true, when taken at face value, as the Environment Agency’s and the Borough Council’s
flood risk maps show that it is in Zone 1 at the moment. However, in 2009 the Borough
Council adopted its Strategic Flood Risk Assessment (SFRA) and agreed with the
Environment Agency that for the purposes of development control and strategic planning the
predicted Flood Zones for 2115 should be used. These zones show exposure to the 1 in
200 year flood risk event.
These zones are used throughout the Borough and have been used to inform the Core
Strategy and the Site Specific Allocations Development Plan Document (DPD) that will be
issued later on this year. They are also used for assessing planning applications; for
example Palm Paper was assessed using these flood zones.
Using the agreed protocol for assessing development in the Borough puts the development
in an area at high risk of flooding. Consequently, the sensitivity of the development to
flooding needs to be more carefully assessed.
PPS25 ‘Development and Flood Risk’ places different kinds of development into different
vulnerability classes. For example, ‘Waste Treatment’ is classified as being ‘Less
Vulnerable’ to flooding. However, there is another category of ‘Essential Infrastructure’ that
includes ‘Essential utility infrastructure which has to be located in a flood risk area for
operational reasons, including electricity generating power stations…’.
Part of the function of the Energy from Waste is, as the name implies, to generate energy.
Indeed, it has to generate energy in order to maintain its position within the waste hierarchy.
In addition, the proximity to the grid afforded by the Willows is seen as a positive attribute of
the site in this respect. Consequently, the proposal has many of the elements of ‘Essential
Infrastructure’ projects, albeit that the ES argues that it should be treated purely as ‘Waste
Treatment’.
In order for ‘Essential Infrastructure’ to be acceptable in Flood Zone 3, PPS25 requires that
the proposal passes, first of all, the Sequential Test. Quoting from Annex D of PPS25, ‘The
risk-based Sequential Test should be applied at all stages of planning. Its aim is to steer
new development to areas at lowest probability of flooding’.
The ES states at Appendix 10.2 that ‘there is no technical requirement to undertake a
Sequential Testing [sic] as the proposal site is shown to be presently located in an area at
low risk of flooding…’. Your officers believe that this is wrong given the availability of the
SFRA and its assessment of climate change and 1 in 200 year flood risk events. The
‘PPS25 Good Practice Guide’ describes a flood risk management hierarchy as follows:-
1. Assess the flood risk;
2. Avoid the flood risk by applying the sequential test;
3. Control the flood risk by using flood defences; and
4. Mitigate residual flood risk, e.g. using flood resilient construction.
11/01064/CM Development Control Board
25 July 2011
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