Speeches by Buckley.

“Very helpful. We have a final question, but we will write to you to ask whether you have any examples from other countries that we could learn from in terms of the grey infrastructure. Thank you for your responses.”

“What do you think we should do? How could we enforce these private owners?”

“Thank you, it is very helpful. The same to yourself, Professor Hall.”

“Excellent. That is a perfect segue into the question I am about to ask you, which is looking at the grey infrastructure and those grey assets. You talked about my constituency in Shrewsbury. We are a historic river town. We have Victorian infrastructure that was not built for the volume of houses that we have. We are r…”

“Would you say that should be a key recommendation of this committee?”

“That is really helpful for coastal and then for inland river—like my constituency of Shrewsbury that you referred to—what about combining the fluvial and the pluvial? Combining that rainwater with what is happening already in the river. Is there a use in joining that together?”

“Thank you. That is very helpful. Professor Naylor, did you have a comment?”

“I want to start by thanking Dr Sayers for your comments earlier about that context—the multiple factors around what causes flooding. You talked about if the groundwater is already quite high because of previous rainfall then that obviously plays into your risk of flood. We heard from the previous panel about the fragme…”

“I was really interested to hear you talk about that complex arrangement or that array of different partners, because that is exactly how residents feel—that it is highly complicated. They do not know who does what and they do not know who to turn to. You also talk about the need for more investment and better value for…”

“We often represent rural areas where we have a small number of houses that are flooded frequently rather than a considerable number flooded once every 10 years. How do you feel about proposing changes so that instead of grants being allocated on the basis of scale—so the number of properties—another factor in there oug…”

“Very helpful. We have a final question, but we will write to you to ask whether you have any examples from other countries that we could learn from in terms of the grey infrastructure. Thank you for your responses.”

“Excellent. We are catching up with ourselves.”

“So you think there are some specific areas that could be regulated at national level? If you could that information to the note that you are going to be sending, that would be helpful.”

“Thank you. Thanks for your time.”

“Finally, do you see any of the risks or consequences if local authorities do not have adequate resources? Do you see any problems or dangers there?”

“Thank you. Did you have anything to add, Mr Trew?”

“Would you suggest that that should be a key recommendation to come out from today, that the Government look at increasing capacity around strategic planning and not just reactive officers?”

“Do you have any comments, Alistair Smyth?”

“So you think there are some specific areas that could be regulated at national level? If you could that information to the note that you are going to be sending, that would be helpful.”

“It is a local council officer who will go out with the building reg form and sign it off. It goes back to your local councils, which have had budget cuts of 40% over the last 15 years. So you are still on a waiting list. Do you not see any consequences or implications if there is a deficiency at local council level?”