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River and coastal maintenance programmes 2011 -12

Protecting the river environment and managing flood risk is part of our job. We reduce the risk of flooding by undertaking maintenance work in our rivers and to our river and sea defences.

Our annual maintenance programme includes routine activities and a range of other activities which are carried out according to the timetable below. Our programme is agreed following consultation with Natural England and our own fisheries, recreation and biodiversity teams.

April 2011 - March 2012

These spreadsheets show our maintenance activities for April 2011 - March 2012. You can search by region by using the different tabs within the spreadsheet.

Our maintenance work in watercourses will be undertaken where it is justified to do so on flood risk grounds.

Please note that whilst every effort is made to ensure our maintenance programme is kept up to date and on track the exact timing of any specific piece of maintenance work may depend on the weather, available resources and any environmental issues which may delay or prevent the work being completed as planned.

What work do we carry out?

We focus our effort on those activities that help us manage flood risk and coastal erosion, and where there are economically and environmentally justified reasons for doing so. The work we do includes:

  • maintaining flood barriers and pumping stations;
  • clearing grills and removing obstructions from rivers;
  • controlling aquatic weed within rivers;
  • managing grass, trees and bushes on our flood embankments;
  • inspection and repair of flood defence structures.

Each site is different so we choose the most suitable maintenance procedure for each stretch of river, coastline or defence. We aim to provide a sustainable way of managing flood risk, whilst minimising the environmental impact of our maintenance operations.

How do we decide what work is needed?

We use the following four categories to decide the level of maintenance for each of our rivers or defences:

  1. We will continue to maintain defences where there is an economic case to reduce the risk from flooding to people and property.
  2. We will continue to maintain defences that are required to protect internationally designated environmental features from the damaging effect of flooding, for example Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
  3. We will consider maintaining defences that do not fit categories 1 and 2 above, but where work is justified due to legal commitments or where stopping maintenance would cause an unacceptable flood risk.
  4. We will, following consultation, consider stopping maintenance of defences that do not fit the above three categories. We will work supportively with interested parties to explore options in such circumstances.

Further information

If you need further information about our maintenance programmes, or what is happening near you, please contact us.