Making local connections – on a global threat

Monday, October 20, 2008

Chris Smith, the new chairman of the Environment Agency, knows that his staff are dedicated and high-performing. But, as he tells Alison Thomas, what he wants them to do now is to engage with the public in the battle against climate change

The Environment Agency has to think big. It is helping shape the UK’s response to the massive global threat of climate change, planning ahead to protect the environment to the end of the century and beyond and contributing to the debate on the major strategic decisions to be made on issues ranging from flood defence to nuclear power and carbon capture.

But for its new chairman, the challenge is to relate these giant, global issues to the grassroots level, connecting to local communities and involving them in decision making. And former Labour cabinet minister Chris Smith, now Lord Smith of Finsbury, is thrilled to be taking on the challenge.

"The environment and our stewardship of it is quite simply the most important issue facing our generation," he says. "The Environment Agency stands at the point where environmental change has its greatest impact on the lives of ordinary people. It’s where floods and water quality, and planning and handling of waste and a whole range of other issues are both directly relevant to people and have their greatest impact."

It is vital that the agency works alongside com-munities, rather than imposing solutions on them, Lord Smith argues.

"This organisation is full of very dedicated, high-performing staff who know their stuff," he says. "Whether you want to know about water quality, the behaviour of rivers, or what pollutants do to human or animal health, the Environment Agency has the people who are expert at it.

"What it hasn’t been quite as good at is sharing that knowledge with the community. We need to be engaging and discussing and collaborating with the public, so that where a community has a waste tip down the road or a problem with flooding, we must make sure the agency is there sharing its knowledge – not coming in and trying to take over, but entering into discussions about what the options are and how we can make the best choices going forward.

"One of the things I am going to be plugging very hard is the need to improve the way we connect with the public."

There are issues that can only be resolved by talking them through case by case, he adds. "There’s a world of difference between saying ‘we are scientists, we know best’, and saying ‘this is what the science tells us – here are the choices that opens up’. Our approach should be to talk through the difficulties and benefits of those choices."

That also entails ensuring coherence within an agency that deals with everything from handing out angling licences to regulating nuclear waste, and across the wider public sector and beyond.

"Because it’s got such a breadth of remit, we must ensure that everyone inside the agency knows the whole picture, not just their own little bit of it. It’s something that the chairman has to encourage, as well as making sure that the public outside know that there’s a coherent picture here and what the agency is all about. The other aspect is across the whole of government at all levels, making sure that there is a joined-up awareness across government, local authorities and other bodies with responsibilities in this area of the needs of the environment, to achieve coherence across the piece."

But he concedes that no amount of public consultation or joined-up governmental response will succeed in pleasing everyone, particularly in contentious areas such as coastal flood defence spending. Rising sea levels are putting parts of the UK coastline under serious threat, with debates raging over which merit all-out defence against the waves or a managed retreat.

"We will do what we can to defend as many communities as we possibly can," Lord Smith says. "We are already working to make sure that even with climate change, rising sea levels and greater unpredictability in the weather we can defend these locations for the next 25, 50, or 100 years. We won’t be able to do that everywhere; the resources aren’t there and sometimes the cost of building the defences will be astronomical compared with the benefits."

But he adds: "We have to recognise that for the people whose houses are under threat that sort of cost-benefit analysis is irrelevant: it’s their home. We must try to be as open and transparent, clear and sensitive as we can in discussing with coastal communities how we deploy limited resources."

There is, he says, also a need for "serious discussions" with the government about what compensation or other assistance that could be made available to the people whose homes fall victim to climate change. Meanwhile, the chairman says he will make the case for extra resources for the Environment Agency whenever he can.

"We have come out of the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement in reasonably good shape. Our budget for flood risk management goes up very substantially from £600m to £800m over the next three years. Our overall budget also goes up a little bit so we are able to maintain all the other things we are doing alongside the increase in flood risk work. I’d like more, but we are almost certainly not going to get it, so we are looking at making existing resources go further. We have become more efficient, we have taken a more intelligent, proportionate approach to our regulatory responsibilities, concentrating on pursuing polluters rather than ticking boxes and counting numbers."

Lord Smith also welcomes the Pitt Review recommendation that the agency should assume an overview responsibility for surface water flooding, coordinating the work of local authorities and water companies. Detailed discussions on how that will work in practice are under way, with a Floods Bill expected next year, he says, and the agency is also acting on another Pitt recommendation and building much closer links with the Met Office.

Lord Smith refuses to be drawn on whether the Environment Agency should be given powers to veto planning applications to build on flood plains, but adds: "We will try to make sure we can bang heads together and that people listen when we do. There are cases where we have very strongly advised against, but planning permission has nonetheless been given – there are no prizes for being proved right after the event."

Climate change also has an influence on other areas of the agency’s responsibilities, including nuclear waste and the environmental impact of some renewable technologies. While nuclear energy may not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, Lord Smith says the "great unsolved issue" of nuclear fission is the long-term storage and disposal of high-level nuclear waste.

"It is an absolute necessity if a new nuclear programme goes ahead that the issue of high-level waste is properly resolved," he adds.

The agency is also taking a keen interest in the effects of renewable options, with the most obvious example being the dilemma over a Severn barrage. "It’s a classic example where there are drawbacks and benefits," he says.

A barrage across the entire estuary could generate the power to meet 5 per cent of the nation’s energy needs – "not to be sneezed at" – but at the same time could have a "catastrophic" effect on the environment.

"It poses enormous threats to very important habitats for birdlife and to the fish population of the Severn and its subsidiary rivers – the environment of that entire catchment would change fundamentally and for the worse. There are serious environmental issues at stake and we are going to make sure that these are properly and fully considered.

"What I want to see is a way of harnessing the tidal power that goes up and down the Severn but doing it in a way that doesn’t shut off the entire river. We could get a win-win here rather than a win-lose. Ideas such as tidal turbines or tidal ponds are being put forward very seriously now – if we can find ways of using the tidal surge without shutting off the whole river and not destroying important habitats, then we would have something that we could all say is really good."

And facilitating that kind of solution to contentious issues is part of the agency’s job, Lord Smith suggests. "The role of the Environment Agency is to raise the flag of warning, but it is also to bring people together to find solutions and a way forward for the future."

Meanwhile the good news is that climate change is being taken seriously, he says. "When I was environment spokesman for Labour in the early 1990s the struggle was getting anyone to take any notice of it. Now people know it’s important."

The work of the agency isn’t only about disaster warnings, and strengthening defences against climate change, but also about improving the environment and making the nation a nicer place to live. "It’s really exciting when things are going right," says Lord Smith, enthusing about a recent visit to the river Yealm, Dartmoor, to open a new fish pass opening the upper reaches of the river to salmon and sea trout. "That’s great for wildlife, for anglers and for tourism and a very good example of something simple and low cost bringing direct environmental improvement to a very beautiful area. It’s just one of a whole lot of very practical improvements happening up and down the country, and that’s what the agency is about."