Hampshire County Council's responsibilities for managing flooding

Hampshire County Council’s responsibilities cover dealing with surface water and groundwater flooding, and flooding affecting ordinary water courses (i.e. that which are not main rivers):

• groundwater flooding, caused when heavy or prolonged rainfall makes the groundwater table rise above its normal level
• surface water (rainfall) runoff, which flows from, or over, surfaces such as roads, roofs and patios that cannot easily absorb water
• ordinary watercourses which cannot contain large volumes of surface water runoff during or after heavy rain

The Flood & Water Management Act 2010 places a number of new duties on the County Council in its new role as a Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA).

These duties include:

• a duty to prepare a Local Flood Risk Management Strategy (LFRMS)
• a duty to investigate significant flood incidents
• a duty to establish and maintain a register of structures that affect flood risk
• a duty to designate third party assets that affect flood risk and give notice to owners that they have been so designated
• a new role for LLFAs as SuDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems) Approval Body (SAB) and, along with that, a requirement to approve, adopt and maintain SuDS

There are also new consenting powers over works to ordinary water courses.

Hampshire County Council can additionally undertake scrutiny activity to ensure flood risk management is appropriately exercised throughout the county.

In order to co-ordinate the flood risk management activity across Hampshire County Council and other flood risk management authorities, a Strategic Flood & Water Management Group has been established comprising representatives from across the county council and a range of other organisations.