North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee

About the North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee

To view the North West RFCC 2022-2025 Business Plan click here.

The North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee

The North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC) is one of 12 RFCCs in England, established under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010.

The RFCC brings together, with an independent Chair, the principle authorities responsible for managing flood and coastal erosion risk in their region, they are:

The Environment Agency
County and Unitary Authorities, in their capacity as Lead Local Flood Authorities and Highways Authorities
Water and Sewerage Companies

The RFCC comes together as a regional partnership to take an overview of flood and coastal erosion risk management across the North West. They also seek to promote investment and encourage innovation which is good value for money and benefits communities.

Much of the funding for flood and coastal erosion risk management schemes comes from central government which is prioritised nationally, but the Committee advises on the national funding programme and can exercise some local choice. RFCCs also raise a Local Levy on Lead Local Flood Authorities which provides an invaluable resource to help fund local flood and coast priorities, often enabling them to attract other funding. As well as helping to fund schemes, the Local Levy is also used to fund projects and resources like The Flood Hub website.

NW RFCC map

Map to show the North West RFCC boundary. For a more detailed look at the map, view it online here.

Map to show the North West RFCC boundary

RFCC Membership

Chair – Adrian Lythgo

Independent
Appointed by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Role is to manage the meetings, ensure the RFCC is providing the required governance to fulfil its role, and act as a figurehead to represent the RFCC and its interests.

Elected members (Local Councillors)

10 members
Appointed by five sub regional partnerships (Cumbria, Lancashire, Cheshire Mid Mersey, Merseyside, Greater Manchester)
Role is to represent the interests and voice concerns on behalf of people living and working in their partnership area, suggest and agree approaches to overcome challenges based on local experience, and allocate Local Levy funding across the North West. They also report to the RFCC on significant local flooding and on sub-regional partnership delivery of agreed actions.
Vote annually on the Local Levy rate

Independent members

8 members
Appointed by the Environment Agency
Role is to bring specialist skills or expertise in aspects relevant to flooding and coastal change
Includes a representative from United Utilities, a key partner who have been consistently represented on the RFCC for some years. Their role is particularly critical in strategic and integrated planning and delivery of programmes which reduce flood risk (particularly from surface water and sewers) and improve river and bathing water quality.

The North West RFCC – photograph taken at meeting in West Kirby in October 2022

Top: Carolyn Otley, Suzana Ilic, Cllr Tony Brennan, David Shaw, Adrian Lythgo (RFCC Chairman), Cllr Ray Mashiter, Neville Elstone, Chris Findley.

Bottom: Stewart Davies, Cllr Jane Hugo, David Harpley, Cllr Laura Crane, Cllr Alan Quinn, Cllr Tricia Ayrton, Cllr Keith Little, Cllr Stephen Clarke, Carl Green.

North West RFCC Elected Members (as at July 2024)

Sub-Regional Partnership

Representation

Partnership Co-ordinator

Cumbria

(1 member)

Cllr Denise Rollo (Cumberland Council)

Alison Harker

alison.harker@westmorlandandfurness.gov.uk

Cheshire Mid Mersey

(2 members)

Cllr Karen Shore (Cheshire West and Chester)

Cllr Nick Mannion (Cheshire East Council)

Cllr. Laura Crane – Deputy Member (Cheshire East Council)

Matthew Winnard

matthew.winnard@warrington.gov.uk

Greater Manchester

(3 members)

TBA

Jill Holden

jill.holden@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk

Lancashire

(2 members)

Cllr. Stephen Clarke (Lancashire County Council)

Cllr. James Shorrock (Blackburn Council)

Lorah Cheyne

Lorah.cheyne@lancashire.gov.uk

Merseyside

(2 members)

Cllr Mhairi Doyle (Sefton Council)

Cllr Tony Brennan (Knowsley Council)

Cllr Daniel Barrington (Liverpool City Council)

Cllr. Elizabeth Grey (Wirral Council)

(Two councillors attend RFCC on rotational basis)

Sarah Wardle

sarahwardle@wirral.gov.uk

If you would like to find out more information on any of the partnerships, please contact the relevant partnership co-ordinator.

North West RFCC Independent Members (as at July 2024)

Special interest area	Member
Nature Conservation	Kate Morley
Coast	Susannah Bleakley
Water Industry	TBC
Communities	Carolyn Otley
Agriculture & Land Management	Paul Barnes
General Business & Assurance	Neville Elstone
Planning and Design	TBC
Development and Sustainable Investment	Chris Findley

If you would like to contact any of the independent members, please email nw-rfcc@environment-agency.gov.uk

RFCC Member Recruitment

The Environment Agency is looking for a new member to join the North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC) that has responsibility for promoting an understanding of flood risk, irrespective of cause: coastal, fluvial or surface water.

They are looking for someone with expertise in the water and sewerage industry to represent this sector on the Committee.

RFCCs are committees set up by the government to decide on local priorities, raise local levies and approve programmes of work associated with managing the risk of flooding and coastal erosion. They also support the Environment Agency and local authorities in working with communities, and others to identify and raise funding.

The committee needs to have a balance of skills, knowledge and experience across its membership.

The government appoints the committee’s chair. Local authorities appoint members, who offer local democratic representation, and the Environment Agency appoints members for their specialist skills.

Committee members do not receive a salary but expenses are paid. RFCCs meet four times a year with some additional work between official meetings to help progress the objectives set out in the RFCC’s Business Plan.

The deadline for applications is Friday 30th August 2024, with interviews taking place during early September.

If you are interested in joining, please read the information provided below and complete the Expression of Interest form and forward this with your CV and optional diversity form to Rachel Harmer at NW-RFCC@environment-agency.gov.uk by Friday 30th August 2024.

Sub-Regional Partnerships

Five sub-regional partnerships underpin the RFCC to provide more local co-ordination, prioritisation and monitoring of actions and investment. They involve all the risk management authorities covering their geographical area, often with other local partners as well, and have groups which operate at strategic, tactical and operational levels. More information on the partnerships and their areas is available from the Your Local Area page.

Cumbria
Lancashire
Cheshire Mid Mersey
Merseyside
Greater Manchester

The RFCC also has very close links with the North West and North Wales Coastal Group which, although it operates under slightly different legislation and governance rules, effectively forms a sixth strategic partnership group. The Coastal Group brings together the local authorities, the Environment Agency and other organisations who manage the coastline from Great Orme’s Head in Wales to the Scottish Border on the Solway Firth. Visit the Coastal Group website here: www.mycoastline.org.uk.

North West RFCC Business Plan 2022-25

Overview

The North West RFCC has launched a new Business Plan for 2022 to 2025.

The plan has been developed through a series of workshops with the sub-regional strategic flood risk partnerships. It has also been informed by responses to a community survey carried out earlier in the year.

The new Business Plan translates the National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for the North West, incorporating regional priorities, and sets out the role the RFCC will play in enabling and supporting its implementation.

The Plan recognises the vital need for the RFCC and its flood risk management authority partners to work more collaboratively with a wider range of partners and communities, and to develop and achieve shared objectives.

Sections of the Business Plan

The Business Plan sets out five linked ambitions.

Accessing investment and funding
Building community resilience
Managing water at catchment scale with nature
Achieving climate resilient planning, development and infrastructure
Increasing risk management authority capacity and collaboration

The main body of the Plan provides an overview of the ambitions, challenges and the RFCC’s strategic aims.

In response, the RFCC has agreed to progress an initial programme of 16 actions. In summary these are:

ID1 Potential investment and partner map
ID2 Investment in the development of innovative green finance mechanisms
ID3 Assessment and valuation of wider benefits of flood and coastal erosion risk management schemes
ID4 Collaborative approach to asset maintenance and management
ID5 The Flood Hub
ID6 Supporting community engagement on adapting to coastal change
ID7 Action campaign – Flood resilience
ID8 Flood Poverty Project
ID9 Whole catchment approach
ID10 Evidence gathering – Climate resilience within planning and development
ID11 Evidence gathering – Effectiveness of Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) advice on planning applications
ID12 Action campaign – Paving over front gardens
ID13 Data sharing and mapping of flood risk and drainage assets
ID14 Local authority capital project delivery challenges
ID15 Risk management authority capacity building programme
ID16 Additional capacity (to support the RFCC, partnerships and risk management authorities)

The appendix to the Plan provides some additional detail on these 16 actions. These actions may evolve through further scoping and planning but the plan sets out our original intentions.

The RFCC welcomes feedback on the Business Plan from any potential partners or interested parties. Please direct this to: NW-RFCC@environment-agency.gov.uk

Click below to download the full Business Plan document, or the summary Business Plan on a Page.

North West RFCC Business Plan (2022 – 2025)

North West RFCC Business Plan-on-a-Page (2022-2025)

RFCC Meetings and Registering to Attend

The Committee holds four meetings per year which are open to the public to observe, plus additional meetings and workshops to progress specific areas of RFCC business. Following the practice of meeting virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, the North West RFCC now intend to have a mixture of virtual and in-person meetings across the year.

Register to Attend a North West RFCC Meeting

Forthcoming RFCC meeting dates:

Date	Location
18th October 2024	TBC
26th January 2025	TBC

If you’d like to attend and observe a North West RFCC meeting please contact:

Rachel Harmer, RFCC Secretariat Officer at NW-RFCC@environment-agency.gov.uk

For any further information on the North West RFCC please contact us at NW-RFCC@environment-agency.gov.uk

Next meeting

18th October 2024

Previous meetings

19th July 2024

26th April 2024

19th January 2024

20th October 2023

21st July 2023

You can also access the minutes of the previous meeting, as well as the date and agenda for the next meeting, on the North West RFCC’s webpage on .gov.uk.