Virtual Fisheries Forum | Reservoir Safety Reform Programme
–Find out about future reforms to reservoir management in England–
As part of the ongoing programme of Reservoir Safety Reform, we’re delighted to invite you to a progress update following our last Forum on reservoir safety in November 2022. With input from the Environment Agency’s National Reservoir Safety Team, we’ll host an open Q&A where any questions or concerns can be addressed.
For further details, please read the below message from the National Reservoir Safety Team, or contact [email protected]:
Reservoir safety is about ensuring the physical structure of a reservoir, its dams and embankments are safe. In England, around 2.2 million people are potentially at risk from reservoir dams failing and causing flooding which could endanger life. We have an excellent reservoir safety record. However, the Toddbrook incident in 2019, increasing demands on water supply and the impacts of climate change, are all reasons to re-evaluate how we regulate reservoir safety.
The Reservoir Safety Reform Programme is being developed and delivered in response to the recommendations set out in the Independent Reservoir Safety Review Report. As part of the reform programme, we have commissioned work to develop a new hazard classification which better reflects the level of risk from reservoir failure, and the arrangements for how it would operate. The aim is to have an approach with more hazard classes and so greater scope for differentiation in how reservoirs are regulated. Reservoirs which are in the higher hazard classes would be subject to more regulatory requirements and those which are in lower hazard classes would have fewer requirements.
We are gathering information to help us identify the locations of small, raised reservoirs across England (i.e. reservoirs which are capable of holding 10,000 -25,000 m3 water above ground level). This is a key step in determining whether such reservoirs should be regulated, and form part of our new hazard classification. We have created a briefing note, which explains our work in more detail.
You can get involved in the data collection survey for small-raised reservoirs by completing the form
You can find out more about the Reservoir Safety Reform Programme on our information page
Fisheries Forums are free to attend and open to all, and we would encourage you to notify any fishing friends or colleagues who might find the session useful.
Thursday 1st February 2024
Start time: 7:00pm
End time: 8:45pm (approx)
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
After feedback from previous events, our Freshwater Virtual Forums are now broadcast via Zoom. Once you’ve registered, you will be sent a link for joining. You do not need an account with Zoom in order to take part.
Virtual Fisheries Forums follow a simple format, with talks from our guest speakers, before an open Q&A session, where your questions will be answered. Using the Q&A function on Zoom, you will be able to raise questions at any time.
To submit a question in advance or to find out more, contact Mark via [email protected]
