“In 2018 we faced horrendous flooding in Carmarthenshire leading to homelessness and death. We are being told that extreme weather conditions like this will become the new normal as the climate breaks down. Does the council have a climate crisis fund and risk assessment for the area? How much money is in the fund and can it be deployed to counter climate threats?”
Minutes:
“In 2018 we faced horrendous flooding in Carmarthenshire leading to homelessness and death. We are being told that extreme weather conditions like this will become the new normal as the climate breaks down. Does the council have a climate crisis fund and risk assessment for the area? How much money is in the fund and can it be deployed to counter climate threats?”
Response by Councillor Cefin Campbell, Executive Board Member for Communities and Rural Affairs:-
Severe coastal flooding has been identified as one of the highest risks identified within the Dyfed Powys Local Resilience Forum. That Forum comprises many public bodies and other agencies and utilities as well. It has developed a Risk Matrix to identify the various risks linked to various crises and events. Certainly severe coastal flooding is classified as “very high” and other types of severe weather such as storms and river flooding score “high” on the Matrix as well. So Carmarthenshire County Council, along with our partners in the Local Resilience Forum, have contingency plans to respond to these types of emergencies. Carmarthenshire County Council also has tried and tested arrangements to lead in the recovery of communities following disasters and we need to just remember the fantastic work that our team of officers did following Storm Callum recently when many areas of Carmarthenshire were flooded and I’m thinking in particular of Carmarthen town itself and the village of Pontweli where many homes and businesses were flooded and people were made homeless for quite some time. So we have a resilient team able to respond quickly to emergencies of that nature.
The second part of your question asks about funding. Well, there is no direct Council funding allocated to deal with natural incidents like this so departmental budgets or Council reserves are used to deal with the initial incidents and the recovery process following on from them.
For large disasters, in certain circumstances, Welsh Government can provide some financial assistance under the Emergency Financial Assistance Scheme. Now this scheme makes discretionary payments and provides emergency financial assistance to Local Authorities. So if the scheme is invoked following an emergency, the Welsh Government will only cover the revenue consequences of an emergency within the immediate aftermath of the incident itself. In addition, Authorities affected will be expected to meet all eligible expenditure up to the level of its threshold. Thresholds are calculated by Welsh Government at 0.2% of the Authority’s annual budget requirement and apply to the whole financial year. So if we have many incidences in that one financial year, it doesn’t matter. It’s just financial assistance for one financial year not for each incident. The current threshold for Carmarthenshire is £714,000.
Ms Sylvan asked the following supplementary question:-
“I am just wondering, do you think it would be wise to have a separate fund?”
Councillor Campbell responded as follows:-
It is certainly something that we could consider and wouldn’t rule out but because the emergencies very often involve the operation of many different departments in the Council, and each department has a set budget, it is very difficult to allocate finances from one given budget because it involves many budgets across the board. It would be very difficult practically to do that. It’s something that we could certainly look at but I think we are responding very well at the moment because we are using our reserves and using the budget that we have and if necessary we use the Welsh Government Emergency Funding as well. So we haven’t been found wanting in any of the emergencies that we have dealt with so far but it is certainly something that we might consider.”