RHICS – Holderness Drain Flood Alleviation Scheme

The River Hull Integrated Catchment Strategy reviewed the whole of the flood risk management issues in the River Hull catchment and identified the needed to undertake works along the Holderness Drain. The objectives of this project are to implement the proposals identified in the strategy which includes constructing embankments and storage areas to reduce the flood risk to properties and agricultural land in Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire.

Phase 1 of the scheme is to implement a sustainable way of providing flood infrastructure and facilitating growth through a land purchase of 155 hectares of agricultural land within Hull City Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s boundary.  The land is allocated as functional floodplain in the Strategic Flood Risk Assessment and therefore is restricted to water compatible development. The proposal is a multi benefit partnership project to create flood storage and a nature reserve as a visitor attraction.

A flood alleviation scheme on Holderness Drain is required to protect 1750 existing residential properties and 5 housing allocation sites in the Draft Local Plan, delivering up to 1275 housing units, approximately 100 existing SMEs and around 1800 hectares of prime agricultural land in Hull and East Riding.

The Local Growth Funding (LGF) is to be used as a contribution to unlock Flood Defence Grant in Aid (FDGiA), through the Partnership Funding mechanism.  It will also enable contributions from Natural England (NE), RSPB and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (YWT) and Yorkshire Water (YW) to be sought for the scheme.

Phase 1 of the scheme is using an opportunity to create a multiple benefit flood alleviation project through the purchase of agricultural land alongside Holderness Drain.  This land had previously been considered as flood storage to provide a sustainable way of managing flood risk using the natural environment, however it was discounted due to the opposition from the existing landowners and tenant and therefore the costs associated with compensating, rendered the scheme unviable.

A proportion of LGF would be used to match fund the FDGiA to enable the land purchase to proceed within the seller’s timescales.

The purchase of the land enables a partnership scheme to be designed, which will fulfil the objectives of a number of stakeholders and brings in future investment.

Phase 2 of the project would be working with the partners to develop the multi benefit scheme to achieve the maximum number of outputs, including Yorkshire Water/Kelda’s vision for a water culture combined with energy efficiency as part of the 2020-2025 investment period.

The evidence to justify the requirement for the scheme was firstly considered in the River Hull Strategy produced by the Environment Agency (EA).  This document highlighted the need for investment in flood infrastructure on Holderness Drain due to the large extent of areas at risk in both the East areas of Hull and rural areas of East Riding.

The River Hull Strategy was replaced by the River Hull Integrated Catchment Strategy (RHICS), a partnership strategy for managing flood risk in the Hull catchment for East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC), Kingston upon Hull City Council (KHCC), EA, YW and the Beverley and North Holderness Internal Drainage Board.