They said > Interview with Mary Dhonau
of the
National Flood Forum |
|
| They say the customer is always right. As consultants in flood risk, Entec is usually working for a local authority, a government agency, or perhaps a property developer. But taking it a logical step further, the real customers are the people affected directly by flooding, whose homes and businesses are damaged and whose lives are put at risk. They are the ones that our customers are there to serve, and whose needs must remain in focus if we are to take a truly holistic view of flood risk. |  |
To help clarify these needs, Entec recently met with Mary Dhonau, chief executive of the National Flood Forum, the charity set up in 2002 as an independent organisation giving support to those affected by or at risk of flooding. Here she shares her views on the Pitt Review, the purpose of the NFF, and what we need to do as individuals and as a nation to help us live with and better manage the risk of flooding in the UK.
How did the National Flood Forum start, and what are its principal activities?
The NFF was the brainchild of the Bewdley Residents Association that formed as a result of the Year 2000 floods. They realised that many other flood action groups were forming and felt the need for an umbrella (pardon the pun!) organisation to both support and represent the needs of the flood victim.
Flood victims don’t get a handbook on how to deal with flooding. It’s such an awful feeling going into your house for the first time after a flood, not knowing which way to turn, where to get advice from, what can be done to stop it happening again, how to deal with insurance problems, how to deal with becoming a building site foreman in your own home, and so on. It has huge implications, and there are many questions that people need someone to answer. During the recent 2007 floods our helplines did not stop ringing all day and often through the night for weeks. So we help raise awareness of flooding in the community, we help people plan for flooding, and help them after floods have occurred.
It’s also our job to make sure that their views are listened to by national government, local government, the Environment Agency, the insurance industry and others. So one of our roles is to keep these groups informed if we think something is going wrong or where we think things can be improved. I know this is valued by Defra, the Association of British Insurers and others, and we have been involved in numerous consultations.
How is the Forum funded?
Like many charities, getting funding for the Flood Forum is very difficult, and the demands on our resources are huge and far reaching. We get some money from working alongside Defra who sponsor us for specific projects, and the EA will pay us, say, to organise a flood fair, but regular funding is very limited. We also get some sponsorship for our fact sheets, and advertising in our newsletter, but it’s limited. Luckily I’m now able to charge for my services in giving presentations or case studies on flood resilience, meaning we can now take on other members of staff, maintain the helpline for flood victims, and go into community groups and give them advice on a way forward. We don’t charge for the help we provide to individuals and communities, our newsletters and factsheets, but we do need income to cover the cost of it all.
How did you personally become involved?
Having studied opera singing at the Royal College of Music, I probably didn’t have the most obvious preparation for the role! But I have been flooded many times myself, and having experience of successfully dealing with the situation, I formed Worcester Action Against Flooding providing support to all 11 flood cells in Worcester. The progress was really positive: I managed to get every agency involved in flood risk round the table, even the local MP, and in chairing these meetings I was enthused about how well it worked in getting them to talk to each other, something they don’t often do. I do have great hope post-Pitt that things will start moving in the right direction in that regard. The Bewdley-based Flood Forum was taking off then, and hearing of my successes asked me to come and work alongside them, and now I’m running the organisation.
You mention the Pitt Review. Were you consulted?
Yes they did involve the Flood Forum. I went up twice, once to talk to Sir Michael personally then once to talk about flood recovery and the problems people were going through. I was also very much involved in the resilience aspects: we provided case studies for resilience (I was in fact one of the case studies in the interim report) and we supplied case studies from within the Flood Forum community for the final Pitt report, so yes we were certainly part of the process.
What’s your opinion of the Review?
I do hope with the political climate at the moment that it doesn’t gather dust because there have been many many reviews that have done so in the past. I’m particularly scared at the moment that because of everything else happening, flooding will again go back on the back burner. A lot of what Pitt said I liked, but we need to see the recommendations put into practice. I felt disappointed that he’d stopped short of compelling everybody to work together. I really had an idea, perhaps an idealistic idea that there should be one body to manage flood risk. Not necessarily an agency in a big ivory tower in London – I suppose what I really want is for all agencies that manage flood risk to work together at a local level in a local office so there can be no buck passing. Where I live in Worcester there had been two nasty pluvial floods in the summer of 2004 and then 2006, and I somehow managed to get all the agencies round the table together working. Observing that process was like watching them put a jigsaw puzzle together, each understanding the areas they need to take responsibility for and how to work together. It’s a shame that good practice hasn’t been formalised in any way, and I hope ultimately that it will be.
One of the recommendations I like is for the EA and Met Office to work more closely together. On a recent visit to the Met Office I was pleased to see a couple of EA desks there. I know the Met Office would like more and I understand why: the EA can benefit so much from using Met Office rainfall data and expertise in their planning and flood response, helping prepare local emergency services and get plans in motion. There really should be enough time to evacuate people safely, and there’s no need in this day and age for people to be rescued from their upstairs windows.
Another thing I like is the desire to have every single water course, ditch and everything electronically mapped – it’s very wide reaching and would take a very long time because many areas have flooded from so many different kinds of water, not just from river water, from sewage and run off from local farmers drains and groundwater and a myriad of different aspects of flooding. So it would be good to have a definitive electronic map though I don’t think will happen overnight.
What else needs to change?
I remember going on GMTV after the first of the 2007 floods in South Yorkshire, to tell people not to let the cowboy builders in. I’ve seen so many pictures of what builders have done to people’s flooded houses: dangerous wiring, incorrect plumbing, plaster put on too quickly… and I’ve seen too many tears from people telling me they fear having a builder in their house more than they fear being flooded. People are often told that flood resilience work is a waste of time by people who know nothing about it. So I’d like to see an urgent review of the building standards accreditation, to limit flood victims’ exposure to shoddy workmanship and bad advice. We have had dialogue with the Property Care Association, and I will gladly endorse any efforts to bring about change in this area.
Another thing I’d like to see is better advice from insurance companies to victims just after they’ve been flooded. For instance, many people think they need to leave everything in place for the loss adjuster to see, but in reality there are lots of things they can do there and then to improve the situation. There’s also a lot of inconsistency between insurers and policies which needs to be addressed. But we have made some progress: by meeting with the insurance industry to highlight the problems that revolve around making a major flood claim and the need for cohesive information, I’m glad to see the Association of British Insurers responding with some useful guidance available through their website.
As individuals, how much responsibility should we have to take?
So many people now are at risk of flooding. If you have chosen to live in Watery Lane or River View Cottage you might expect there’s a risk, but I don’t live next to a river and most people don’t, but many are still at risk, and don’t see why they should pay to protect themselves. I actually did make my home flood resilient to reap the benefits from it but why should I when it’s not my fault? I think you will find a lot of people feel that way. But flood resilience is a very sensible option and if individuals took a few steps to mitigate the effects that flooding would have on their property and actually tried to keep the water from coming in in the first place, it could make a big difference to the impact. You can buy very simple and effective solutions: outdoor boards, air brick covers, large polythene bags to put your three piece suite in, anti-back-flow valves and so on. We became so used to being told to help ourselves that we put together our Blue Pages of products and services, which is an invaluable tool in making informed decisions. So if we all actually took moves to reduce the risk that we face, we’d be doing our share. It’s about being prepared: having a plan for what you’ll do if and when the flood comes. But it needs to be a partnership that we all belong to, its not just government, it’s not just the flood victim, or the emergency services, it’s everyone managing flood risk working together in partnership.
Going forward, what is the UK’s biggest challenge?
I think we've really got to deal with flood risk that is here and now, and I really feel very strongly that it has to be fully addressed before we build any more developments to add to the problem. Whilst I acknowledge PPS 25, I believe it has to be firmed up to make it work efficiently and I also believe that a high level of training should be given to those in local authorities who are making planning decisions on our behalf, so they fully appreciate the science involved in such decision making. Their decisions will affect all our futures and to that end, local authorities have to be given the support and the tools needed to deliver sustainable built environments.
To find out more about the National Flood Forum and its work, visit the website at http://www.floodforum.org.uk/
Would you like to comment on this? Use our feedback form to let us know what you think.
