To receive the above verbal update.

Brianne Vally (Environment Agency) gave various updates. She started off with an update of the catchment situation. The Thames Catchment had not received a lot of rainfall recently. As of Tuesday 19^th April, only 31% of average rainfall for April was received. As a result, river flows were lower than expected at this time of the year.

For further information, she advised attendees to go to the official government website (gov.uk) and search ‘water situation local area reports’ to find flooding situation updates or reports in local areas.

Brianne Vally then moved onto maintenance and capital works carried out in the RBWM area. In terms of capital works, hydrometry and telemetry works were happening; with works in Taplow taking place around July and August 2022. There were also going to be cross river signal cables being updated on the flow gauge at Maidenhead in June 2022.

Two bunds in Cookham were identified as being ‘below condition’. Therefore, there were plans to resolve this once the ‘Let’s Rock the Moor’ festival had passed.

Water leaks had been identified at one of the recent flooding events near the Cookham Wall. These had been investigated, but it was yet to be confirmed when the works would take place. It was also identified there was a need for the access track to be maintained in the Cookham area. There were plans to deploy water pumps in the area so that it would be safe for flood operatives to access the area.

Some works were also planned for the North Maidenhead Bund after some surveys were carried out last year on the flood risk of the bund.

Brianne Vally confirmed that it was not expected to be road closures along the A4 Bath Road due to maintenance of the retaining wall of the Jubilee River in late-May and early-June 2022.

There were also works on the pipeline, including refurbishment in Old Windsor Bell and Penton weir over the next couple of years as well as a program of gathering data and surveys. There were also wider navigation and works taking place in some areas around the Borough.

Brianne Vally then moved on to give an update on the Datchet to Hythe End flood improvement measures project. She shared an image of the EA Project lifecycle. The project was still in the initial stages of the Datchet to Hythe End flood improvement measure, seeking an alternative to channel section one of the River Thames schemes and possibly viable to reduce flood risk in the Datchet to Hythe End area.

EA (Environment Agency) were continuing to work with one of their framework contractors to review the existing information to be able to justify a project. The main work carried out would enable EA to justify the project and invest further into looking at options that would be viable in the area.

EA were also ensuring that the project team was resourced adequately and have appointed a project manager.

The Chair asked about the timeframe of the project, as the project had been running for two years. Brianne Vally said that the project team was currently preparing a programme for the project, but it was not yet available to share.

In response to Brianne Vally’s stating that the Environment Agency was working closely with RBWM, the Chair commented that the last two strategic meetings were cancelled and therefore questions were not answered. He asserted that the project needed to engage with the community and RBWM needed to know the timeframe. He also added that strategic meetings needed to take place so that RBWM could have the necessary information.

Brianne Vally stated she hoped to provide an answer regarding the timeframe at the next meeting.

ACTION: Brianne Vally to give an update of the timeframe of the Datchet to Hythe End Flood Improvement Measures Project.

Councillor Larcombe requested the names of the people on the Programme Steering Group. The Chair requested for Brianne Vally to provide a list of members to be circulated amongst the panel.

ACTION: Brianne Vally to provide a list of members of the Programme Steering Group.

Victor Freeney (Environment Agency Independent Consultant) stated a workshop took place a few weeks prior to investigate how much work would be needed for the strategic outline case phase and the outline business case phase, as part of the EA Project. He said that at the next meeting they would aim to provide a date for the first stage of work but that it would not be possible to provide dates for the later stages as it would depend upon what the preferred options were to be delivered.

Brianne Vally then gave an update on the flood warning signs. EA had been made aware of some degraded warning signs in Cookham and subsequently in Bisham. The parish councils of Cookham and Bisham had been contacted a few weeks ago to be informed that EA would use its permissive powers under section 165 of the Water Resources Act to replace the signs.

There were also flood warning signs around the Borough which were going to be de-commissioned, mainly because EA’s phone number displayed on the signs was out-of-date.

Brianne Vally moved onto funding from SSEN. Since 2015, SSEN ran the resilient communities fund, mainly to support and improve the local resilience in the area.