Flood and Water Management Act 2010
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to bring schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 into force in England.
Answered by Emma Hardy
The Government is strongly committed to improving the implementation of Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) and we are looking at what additional steps might be taken to support this.
Better delivery of SuDS may be achieved by continuing to improve the current planning policy-based approach and looking at ways of improving the approach to adoption and maintenance, rather than commencing schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. A final decision on this matter will be made in the coming months.
We have made some immediate changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to support increased delivery of SuDS. The NPPF now requires all development to utilise SuDS where they could have drainage impacts. These systems should be appropriate to the nature and scale of the proposed development. See paragraphs 181 and 182 of the NPPF.
In June this year, the Government introduced new national standards, making clear that SuDS should be designed to cope with changing climatic conditions as well as delivering wider water infrastructure benefits in the form of flood prevention and storm overflow reduction, offering reuse opportunities, reducing run off, and helping to improve water quality, amenity, and biodiversity.
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