National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy 2019 – Environment Agency publishes initial scoping report The Environment Agency has announced plans to undertake a Strategic Environmental Assessment for the National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy 2050. The revised flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) strategy requires a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) under the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations.
A formal consultation on the draft FCERM Strategy, which will consider what flood and coastal erosion risk management will look like in 2050, is planned for January 2019. The Agency has now published an initial scoping report on the SEA – the scoping stage of SEA decides the issues the Agency should address and the approach.
The Agency will present the outcome in the environmental report which will be published together with the consultation on the draft FCERM Strategy 2050.
The strategy will include, among other things:
- an overview of flood and coastal erosion risk in England
- a long-term, strategic ambition for managing flood and coastal erosion risk in England
- the high-level measures proposed to achieve that ambition
- the contribution these will make towards the government’s wider environmental objectives
- how and when the strategy will be reviewed
The Agency said it now intends to undertake an environmental assessment and prepare an environmental report in respect of the strategy. Part of the process of creating a new National FCERM Strategy includes a Strategic Environmental Assessment – this is a legal part of the process.