The independent Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) has questioned the Ministerial Direction introducing a new requirement that reservoir undertakers must produce on-site flood plans.

The RPC is tasked with providing independent, in-depth, wide-ranging and real-time scrutiny of proposed regulatory measures put forward by Government.

The challenge, which comes in the Committee’s first report Reviewing Regulation, is one 107 new regulatory proposals  the RPC has examined since it was set up at the end of 2009 from the then Government between December 2009 and May 2010.

Ministers have decided that, beginning with the 100 highest risk facilities, reservoir undertakers will be directed to prepare flood plans for every large raised reservoir in England and Wales.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consulted on the proposals following a "near miss" involving the Ulley reservoir near Rotherham during the 2007 floods in south Yorkshire.

However the RPC's report has queried the need for the direction, stating:

“Given the evidence presented in the Impact Assessment, the case for introducing new statutory requirements for reservoir undertakers to have on-site flood plans is not clear at this stage. Even if the case for intervention were clear, the preferred policy measure does not appear to be risk-based. Furthermore, the estimated benefits appear to be optimistic given historical data and experience. Specifically, the benefits are based on numbers of lives saved in the event of reservoir failure, despite the fact that there have been no such fatalities since reservoir safety legislation was introduced in the 1930s."