Floods minister announces which projects around the
country have been allocated funding for natural flood defences,
part of the government’s drive to roll out innovative techniques to
reduce flood risk.
New allocations of flood management funding will allow homes,
businesses and communities around the country to benefit from
increased flood protection, Floods Minister Thérèse
Coffey announced today.
34 community led projects have been named as winners of
a £1m government funded
competition, the first of its kind, and will now be able to
realise their innovative plans to use landscape features such as
ponds, banks, meanders, channels, and trees to store, drain or
slow flood water.
24 other catchment scale projects have also been allocated
funding to develop larger scale projects which will benefit wider
areas; with Cumbria, Greater Manchester Merseyside and Cheshire
and Wolsingham all receiving over £1m of funding.
Environment minister Thérèse Coffey said:
This funding will help more than 50 projects around the country
take full advantage of innovative natural flood management
measures. Flood defence technology and engineering is better
than ever and by using a mix of natural and concrete defences,
we can provide the best flood protection for individual areas.
Methods such as restoring floodplains and planting trees will
not only help protect families, homes and businesses from
flooding, they will also bring environmental benefits to the
wider area and all the people who live in these many
communities.
Minister Coffey announced the successful allocations in Sutton
and Roxwell, where she visited two of the schemes which will
receive funding.
Following flooding in Roxwell last year the community bid for
funding to improve land and ditch management and reduce the risk
of the local brook overtopping again. This project has been
allocated £50,000 so the community can work with local landowners
to help slow the flow of water down to the brook.
Sutton’s sustainable drainage in schools project will receive
£50,000 to improve the town’s natural flood defences. This scheme
will be run across seven of Sutton’s schools, providing improved
flood protection to over 100 properties.
Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency, said:
Natural flood management is an important part of our approach,
alongside traditional flood defences and helping homeowners to
improve their own property resilience. There is no ‘one size
fits all’ solution to flooding and this scheme is a fantastic
example of how we can use a variety of measures that work
together to reduce flood risk.
These allocations come from the £15 million of natural flood
management funding which was announced in March, following the
Autumn statement.
Details of the allocations are available here.
