What is it about?
The Flood & Water Management Act 2010 gives Councils in Wales additional powers and responsibilities for managing flooding from surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourse.
As part of this, Conwy County Borough Council has been designated as a Lead Local Flood Authority. This means you must get consent from the Council for any works to an ordinary watercourse. This responsibility was passed from Natural Resources Wales (NRW) in April 2012, which still has responsibility for giving consent to works to main rivers.
Since the Flood & Water Management Act was introduced, Lead Local Flood Authorities, including Conwy Borough County Council, have raised concerns that our legal powers to manage flood risk are limited. This means that certain activities to and around ordinary watercourses do not need consent, but could increase flood risk.
To manage this risk, a national set of Land Drainage Byelaws have been approved by the Welsh Government.
Before Conwy County Borough Council adopts these byelaws, we asked for feedback.
The consultation for the Byelaws ran from 8 November 2018 to 15 February 2019. We are considering the responses and we will report our finding to Cabinet to decide if the Byelaws should be adopted.