Explanatory note

Section 11(3) of the Water Resources Act 1991 (hereinafter called “the Act”) provides that the total number of members of a regional flood defence committee of the National Rivers Authority shall not be less than eleven nor more than seventeen unless a determination that the total number of such members should be increased is submitted by the National Rivers Authority to the appropriate Minister (in the case of the Welsh Regional Flood Defence Committee, the Secretary of State for Wales) under section 11(4) of the Act, and is confirmed by the Minister. Where the total number of members is so increased, the Minister is required by section 11(5) of the Act by Order to specify the number of members to be appointed to the committee by each of the constituent councils for the committee. The total number to be so appointed is required by section 11(6) of the Act to exceed by one the number of the other members of the committee (appointed by the Minister and the National Rivers Authority).

Where the Minister considers it appropriate that a constituent council should appoint a member of the committee, or considers that one or more members should be appointed jointly by that council and one or more other constituent councils, he may by the Order so provide.

The National Rivers Authority has determined that following the reorganisation of local government in Wales under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 the total number of the members of their Welsh Regional Flood Defence Committee should be increased from nineteen to twenty-one. This Order, which confirms that determination, specifies as eleven the number of members of that committee who are to be appointed by or on behalf of the new constituent councils and further specifies by which of those councils such members are to be appointed.

These arrangements replace the arrangements originally made for the appointment of members to the committee by constituent councils in the Welsh National Water Development Authority (Regional Land Drainage Committee) Order 1973 (S.I. 1973/1924) and continued in relation to the Welsh Regional Flood Defence Committee by section 136(8) of the Water Act 1989.