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Section 30 and Schedule 1 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 enable the Environment Agency, a lead local flood authority or an internal drainage board to designate privately-owned flood and coastal erosion risk management assets in England where certain conditions are met. Once designated, the owner of the feature cannot alter, remove or replace it without consent from the relevant authority. These regulations were introduced to effect these powers.

A single PIR was done for both measures to consider how these processes were used. The PIR, as reviewed by the RPC, recommended retention of the regulations despite them having been used only a few times (rather than the thousands anticipated on their introduction). The RPC red-rated the PIR on the basis that the limited use of the regulations and the lack of any evidence of their value did not make a compelling case for their retention and suggested an alternative approach might have been appropriate.

The Department has now published the PIR separately alongside both SIs and stated the Government’s intention to leave the regulations in place at this time. We note that the Department has undertaken further work since we issued our opinion and has updated the PIR to reflect this. Despite further effort, it has not been possible to collect additional information. We note the intent to leave the regulations in place for the present given the department has found no evidence of them creating a burden on businesses, and the commitment to undertake a further PIR five years on from this one, at which point it will hopefully be possible to gather better evidence for either retention or removal of the regulations.