Attendees
| Mark Rice Alex Rainbow Doug Eltham Tom Dauben Penny Tranter Paul Minshull Stephen Swabey Louise Sawyer Mike Waller Rhys Hobbs Emmanuelle Marshall George Arnison Charles Ffoulkes Richard Saville Nick Paling Carolyn Cadman Andrew McArthur Hannah Oliver Paul Lunt | Environment Agency (Chair) Cornwall Council Devon County Council (Environment) Environment Agency Met Office Cornwall Council Council of the Isles of Scilly Devon and Cornwall Police Devon County Council (Environment) Cornwall Council Plymouth City Council Environment Agency RSK ADAS Cornwall Council West Water South West Water RSK ADAS RSK ADAS University of Plymouth |
Apologies
| Emily Reed Dai Morriss Sara Gibbs Stacy Griffiths Victoria Hatfield Laurence Couldrick Maria Van Hove Anya Gopfert Neil Hamlyn Ruth Rockley Thomas Cunningham Lesley Newport James Cooper James Kershaw Jacqui Warren | Devon Climate Emergency Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service Public Health Devon Wales & West Utilities  Exeter City Council Westcountry Rivers Trust Public Health, Exeter University and Torbay Council Environment Agency / Torbay Council Local Resilience Forum Cornwall Council Devon and Cornwall Police Environment Agency Environment Agency Devon County Council Torbay Council |
1. Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed as an accurate record.
2. Update on the Adaptation Plan and Action PlanÂ
Andrew McArthur encouraged the Group to feedback comments on the Adaptation Options by the end of Wednesday 11th January 2023. Any additional adaptation options are welcome, too. These will be refined over the next 10 days.
ACTION: All to feedback to Andrew by end of Wednesday.
Brian Anderson described how the adaptation options have been used to develop adaptation pathways for key risks. This will be issued to the Group for comment shortly.
George Arnison questioned whether the presentation of the pathways is appropriate, as the diagrams suggest some actions would happen concurrently, whilst others would be phased. But in reality many of them could occur concurrently. Andrew said that pathways have been designed based on the prioritisation of the adaptation options by the Group, which will reflect in part the resources and capacity of the responsible authorities to deliver activity.
George, Tom Dauben and Paul Minshull said that understanding the dependencies and sequencing between the adaptation options is required.
Andrew said that the Action Plan is now being prepared and the draft is scheduled for completion by the 27th January ready for a workshop on the same date to agree actions/responsibilities and timeframes that need to be included in the Plan. Following this there will be a 1.5 week review period between the 6th and 15th February. The Action Plan will then be completed for the 24th February.
Paul suggested that that it would be a good idea to invite chairs of other existing groups responsible for flooding to the workshop on the 27th. Doug said that flooding is just one risk addressed by the Adaptation Strategy – if the workshop is opened up to flooding stakeholders it should arguably be opened up to other sectors. Increasing the stakeholder engagement at this stage could delay the process unnecessarily. Stakeholders have had the opportunity to be involved through the engagement workshops in November. Instead, Doug suggested the Group would need to keep local stakeholders informed of progress and ensure they are engaged again during the consultation stage. Emmanuel agreed.
Case Studies
Charles ran through the case studies that are being developed for the Adaptation Strategy. Feedback on these is welcome when they are circulated later.
Nick commented that the single-issue cases studies run the risk of adaptation options missing system issues, and therefore place-based case studies may be more appropriate. Tom suggested that part of the case study template could depict what other risks in the risk register the case study relates to. Nick will think about this further.
Penny suggested the case studies are put into the context of historical weather events. Charles agreed this would be a good idea.
ACTION: Penny and Charles to discuss historical context of the case studies.
3. Future Governance for Adaptation
Charles led the discussion.
Provision of the Secretariat – , currently provided by Devon County Council. Mark advised that he can see the benefit of this function sitting with a regional organisation, or being shared between the three local authorities, to reinforce the regional nature of the partnership. Mark will continue to discuss with colleagues at the Environment Agency.
Hosting of documents – Doug felt the Local Resilience Forum website would be a good place for the documents to be held regionally. Alternatively, Doug said that the Devon Climate Emergency website could host documents, and Devon County Council could continue to provide the internal SharePoint, too, if a more appropriate place can’t be found.
Review periods – Charles suggested every 3 years. Rhys said that the Cornwall Local Plan is due for review in 2030 and so every 3 years would work well. George suggested that keeping the document live instead of scheduling reviews would be useful, particularly this first version that we’ll probably quickly realise has some rough edges. Tom supported this.
Governance decisions were not taken at the meeting.
ACTION: Secretariat to prepare proposals for the next meeting.
4. Consultation Sign-Off Process in the Three Areas
Rhys confirmed that in the Cornwall area the draft Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan will need to be shared with the Council’s Leadership Team to get a steer as to whether the permission to consult would be an officer or councillor decision. This will need to occur after the 24th February once the complete draft is available.
Stephen confirmed that the position is similar in the Isles of Scilly.
ACTION: Secretariat to prepare a proposed consultation timetable for the next meeting, incorporating time for councillor decisions on sign-off.
