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Explanatory note

Original text. Later amendments are not shown.

(This note is not part of the Order)

By virtue of section 138(5) of the Water Act 1989 (“the Act”), the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (in relation to regional flood defence committees in England) must specify the number of members to be appointed to a regional flood defence committee by each of the constituent councils for the committee where (inter alia) the total number of members of the Committee is varied.

In determining the number of members to be appointed by or on behalf of each constituent council, the Minister is required by section 138(7) of the Act to have regard to the relevant population of any relevant area of that council and the proportion which that population bears to the aggregate of the relevant populations of the relevant areas of all the constituent councils and where, having regard thereto, the Minister considers it inappropriate that a constituent council should appoint a member of the committee, he may by the Order so provide. Section 138(9) of the Act defines “relevant area” and “relevant proportion”.

The National Rivers Authority has determined that the total number of the members of their Wessex Regional Flood Defence Committee should be increased from 13 to 15. This Order specifies the number of members to be appointed by each of the constituent councils for that Committee, and varies the previous specification by providing for an additional seat for the Somerset County Council.

These arrangements replace the previous arrangements originally made in the Wessex Water Authority (Regional Land Drainage Committee) Order 1973 (S.I. 1973/1925) in relation to the predecessor of the Wessex Regional Flood Defence Committee. That order ceased to have effect on the repeal of Schedule 5 to the Water Act 1973 (c. 37) by the Land Drainage Act 1976 (c. 70), but its specification of the number of members to be appointed by constituent councils was continued by section 3(3) of the Land Drainage Act 1976 and, in relation to the Wessex Regional Flood Defence Committee, by section 138(1)(b) of the Water Act 1989.