Residents to challenge responsibility to maintain £25m flood defence scheme

Those living on the banks of the River Adur in Shoreham have been told by the Environment Agency that they will have to maintain a new flood defence wall being built as part of a multi million pound project to protect homes in the area.

But they claim owning and maintaining the wall could cost them hundreds and even thousands of pounds a year.

And they fear that they could be faced with considerably larger bills if the flood defences are breached and damage the thousands of homes it is being built to protect.

Campaigners claim it is “illogical” and “inappropriate” to make private individuals pay for a scheme that will bring widespread public good.

They have launched a crowdfunding scheme in a bid to take the case to judicial review to challenge the ownership of the tidal walls imposed upon them.

Work on the tidal wall is underway but residents want assurances that they will not become responsible for the new flood barriers before the serious construction begins.

Houseboat owner Caroline Woods said: “We don’t want this to hold up the building of the scheme but we don’t accept ownership and the Environment Agency have to accept that before they start work.

“We are not being obstructive, we are just shining a light on incongruity of the situation.”

David Johnson, of the Shoreham Beach Residents Association, said: “The wall is there for the good of the community, it is for the benefit of everybody.

“It would be both illogical and inappropriate to make individual landowners liable for maintenance.

“I don’t think the county council, Adur council and the Environment Agency should be shirking responsibility for this.”

An Environment Agency spokesman told The Argus that if the flood defences fail, riverside owners “may be liable” for the damage caused to nearby properties.

The spokesman added: “Many flood defences throughout the country are built on privately owned land, and the rights and responsibilities of riverside landowners have been established in common law for many years.

“In general terms, you own and have responsibility for any structure on your land, unless there are specific agreements to the contrary.

“In most circumstances there is no requirement on a riparian owner to maintain or improve the flood defences unless it were to fail and cause an obstruction to the flow in the river.

“The Shoreham Adur Tidal Walls project has a very strong business case in terms of the cost of the defences and the number of properties protected.

“It is therefore likely that should a serious problem occur to the defences, we would be able to justify spending public money to repair them.”

An Adur District Council spokesman said: "These improvements along the River Adur have been designed to require little maintenance and last approximately 100 years.

“The risk to residents in terms of future maintenance responsibilities is therefore low and is outweighed by the benefit of a new flood defence which would protect their properties.

“Whilst we are sympathetic to the concerns of riverside properties about future maintenance responsibilities, in the event of any major failure of the defence in the future, it is hoped that Government funding would be available, once again, to provide the necessary repair or replacement."

To support the crowd justice campaign, which closes today, visit crowdjustice.co.uk/case/or-maintaining-it.

RESPONSIBILITIES ARE QUITE BAFFLING

It is like something out of Alice In Wonderland, we have fallen down the hole and all this bizarre stuff is just flying past.”

So says Shoreham Beach resident Nicky Loftus on learning that she will own and be responsible for the maintenance of 50 feet of flood defence wall stretching across the bottom of her garden.

Nothing is straightforward when it comes to ownership of amphibious stretches of land and the problem surrounding ownership of the Adur Tidal Wall is highlighting quite a few of them.

As a homeowner in Riverside Road on Shoreham Beach she holds freehold rights to the water’s edge.

When the water levels are low, she owns the mud but when water levels rise it becomes the property of Shoreham Port Authority, which means that Nicky is charged for mooring rights.

The irony for Nicky and her family is they will be responsible for maintaining a wall that will devalue their property by 10 per cent because it blocks out the river view from the bottom of the garden.

She said: “Requiring private maintenance of a public structure is just wrong.

“If you buy a house, the Land Registry will say that you own the house, the garden and the property right out into the middle of the road.

“But that doesn’t mean you have to maintain the pavement and the road.

“We are not against the flood defence.

“We know it is needed, we want everybody to be safe and protected but as it stands this is inequitable.”

She has requested that the highest part of the 5ft tidal wall is replaced with flood glass to retain at least some of her views but buying the panels will cost between £2,500 and £5,000 and the same price again when they need to be replaced.

Nicky said: “There are so many unanswered questions.

“What happens if I spend thousands every year on the maintenance of the walls but my next door neighbour doesn’t and the water then gets through?

“One of the homeowners is responsible for a flood gate.

“She is fine with that now but what happens if she gets to 93 and has dementia and can’t remember to close the flood gate?

“Will she be liable then?

“We will probably have to replace parts of the wall every five to 10 years unless there is a state of emergency.

“But what happens in the future if the company that makes the glass panels or make the seals just goes out of business? What happens then, how are we going to maintain them then?”

For houseboat owner Jess Jermain, she will be responsible for the maintenance of the tidal walls despite not benefiting from the new structure herself.

Her home will be on the waterside of the tidal wall and so would not be sheltered by any rising flood waters.

In fact, the wall will actually become an obstacle if there is an emergency and she has to leave her boat to escape rising waters as she will have to scale a hand rail and then the flood defence wall to get to safety.

She is not alone in being in this strange paradox.

The Shoreham Boatmen and Boat Owners’ Association own only the mud their boats rest on but they will be responsible for maintenance of part of the flood defence protecting other houses behind despite reaping no benefit themselves.

Jess is worried that she could be left with a public liability stretching to millions of pounds if her part of the flood wall fails and the homes behind her in Ormonde Way are flooded.

She said: “The bottom storey and half of those buildings behind my boat are already below the high tide line.

“If it breaches, the water will flow through all the houses, flood up the road and cut off access to the emergency services.

“If that happens then other homeowners living behind our part of the wall will come to us and sue us.

“If we have flooding again like we had in September 2013 then the bank outside our houseboat will be gone.

“This is not just for houseboats, this is an issue for everybody.

“This will affect thousands in total.

“We support the flood defence system and support the need for it but we just question some of the issues around it.”

It is not unknown for houseboat owners like Jess to have unusual public responsibilities tied up in their “alternative lifestyle”.

She said she already has an obligation for some maintenance of the bank where her houseboat is moored including responsibility for removing dead cows and trees that might float around their hulls.

But the level of liability around the tidal wall goes well beyond existing demands and yet was only explained to them, almost by accident, within the last year.

Jess said: “People were concerned about looking out at the end of their gardens and seeing a huge concrete wall and wanted glass panels instead and were told that they would be responsible to replace every broken panel because they were responsible for the barrier’s maintenance.

“That was the first time it had been made explicit to us.”

“When it was mentioned at Adur council’s planning committee in the spring, they all thought it was unfair but couldn’t do anything about it now.

“It is something that they failed to mention in years of planning these walls.”

Fellow houseboat owner Caroline Woods is also unhappy about the poor communication from Government agencies and local government to explain their responsibilities.

She said: “We have lived here over 10 years and in all our meetings with the Environment Agency this has never been raised, not once.

“We have asked for compensation for land we would be losing, they have had lots of opportunities to make it explicit to us.

“This really is the eleventh hour now, they leave everything to the eleventh hour so there is no wriggle room on anything, no time for negotiations.

“We are asking for better communication from the EA and not for them to force ownership on us until the issue of our liabilities is resolved.

“We don’t want this to hold up the building of the scheme but we don’t accept ownership and the EA have to accept that before they start work, we need to have assurances in writing.”

“We are not being obstructive, we are just shining a light on incongruity of the situation.

“We think it should be the area council who is responsible, it should come out of council tax so that everybody pays something towards it.”

PROTECTION FOR HOMES AT RISK

THE Shoreham Adur Tidal Walls Scheme is designed to reduce flood risk by improving the defences along the River Adur.

The £25 million project covers the east and west banks of the River Adur in Shoreham to protect more than 2,300 households and 160 commercial properties currently at significant risk of flooding.

The scheme – expected to be completed in 2018 – is being led by the Environment Agency in partnership with West Sussex County Council and Adur District Council and is funded by the Environment Agency and the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership.

Construction began in August with contractors Team Van Oord setting up site offices and works areas at Beach Green car park.

The scheme is needed because Shoreham is considered vulnerable to tidal flooding from the River Adur – a risk that will only increase over time as climate change leads to sea level rise and more frequent heavy downpours.

Initial work has focused on protecting local wildlife, strimming, setting up compounds and other pre-construction works.

All flood defences in Shoreham are currently privately owned but subject to annual inspection by the Environment Agency.

The Environment Agency has said landowners may be able to claim compensation for the new tidal walls scheme if it causes disruption, loss of business or results in a new financial burden.

Maintaining flood defences will be a matter for the owner but if failure to carry out maintenance results in harm to third parties, the Environment Agency is warning this may give rise to a claim.