10 January 2014 Last updated at 00:10 GMT

Disarray over flood prevention plans

By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst

There is disarray over government plans to prevent new developments making flooding worse, BBC News has learned.

The 2010 Flood Act states developments must be landscaped so water from roofs and drives seeps into open ground, and does not rush into the water system.

But details of the law have been delayed for more than three years.

House builders say it will put up the cost of new home and have been wrangling with government and councils over who pays to maintain new systems.

The BBC understands that a deal has now been struck which is likely to see councils annually billing the owners of newly built homes for maintaining flood-prevention measures like ponds and hollows in the land designed to trap water.

'Extremely sensitive'

The councils argue that owners of existing homes have to pay water companies to remove and treat their run-off water, so the new charge will simply be replacing another.

The new rules have been delayed several times and last summer MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee demanded that ministers should introduce them immediately.

The government had planned to bring in the rules in April but this week admitted that even this delayed deadline would be put back further.

All parties describe discussions as "extremely sensitive".

One major sticking point is that the home builders are resisting the experts' opinion on the way schemes should be built.

The experts say the UK should follow continental neighbours and introduce landscape drainage features that have multiple benefits, like ponds, areas of open grass and planting.

One scheme in Sheffield takes the run-off water from a housing estate, breaks up the flow through a pile of rocks and allows the water to soak away. A nearby pond - designed to hold run-off water - hosts ducks, a heron and dragonflies.

'Ridiculous'

Run-off water contaminated with oil from cars is cleaned up by plants, which saves clean-up costs later - and in a heatwave, the water features will cool the surrounding homes.

The home builders say these features should not be mandatory because they take land which would otherwise be used for homes, and this increases the cost of house-building. They want the rules to allow them to capture run-off water in giant underground tanks.

The experts say this is an inadequate system which does not match the benefits of water storage on the ground.

Observers are dismayed that the disputes are rumbling on.

"It is ridiculous," Professor Richard Ashley from Sheffield University said. "The government is ideologically in favour of deregulation but it's supposed to be introducing this complicated piece of legislation with a demoralised department with civil servants that keep changing. The house builders are lobbying furiously behind the scenes.

"We have alternating periods of droughts and flooding in England and these systems are best at dealing with both - so there really shouldn't be a problem in sorting it out."

Local Government Association spokesman Councillor Mike Jones told BBC News: "The developers should be able to pay for the works that are needed. They are making very healthy profits."

He said it was appropriate that people should pay for their drainage.

But the government is struggling to make rules on exactly what sort of drainage should be permitted in different locations.

'Sustainable drainage'

Prof Ashley warned: "Let's keep this in perspective. New developments are a small fraction of all buildings.

"The problem of floods has already been made worse by decades of misguided drainage rules allowing people to think that getting rid of water into rivers was solving the problem. It is the existing buildings and car parks that are the real challenge."

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "Reducing the impacts of flooding on houses and businesses is a key priority for us and we are committed to introducing sustainable drainage systems (Suds) to help reduce the risk of floods from new developments.

"Suds are usually cheaper to maintain than conventional drainage, and we will be consulting soon on how they will be maintained by local authorities."

Follow roger on Twitter @rharrabin