Local Factors in Managing Flood Risk and Property Flood Resilience – Call for Evidence
February 8, 2021
In July 2020 the Government announced its long-term plan to create a nation more resilient to future flood and coastal erosion risk in its Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Policy Statement. This ambitious plan sets out five key commitments – supported by over 40 actions – to accelerate progress to better protect and better prepare the country for the years to come.
We are currently on track to better protect 300,000 homes by March 2021 through our existing £2.6 billion flood and coastal defence investment programme. The Government want to build on this success so have doubled the investment programme in England to £5.2 billion over six years from April 2021. This will provide around 2,000 new defence schemes to better protect a further 336,000 properties, including both homes and non-residential properties such as schools, hospitals and transport links.
A call for evidence has been launched as the Government want to know what you think about their proposed amendments to the Flood Re Scheme.
Specifically, this Call for Evidence is seeking information about:
Part 1: Strengthening the assessment of local circumstances in the Government’s flood and coastal defence programmeAdditional ways in which specific local circumstances can be taken account of in the government’s future flood and coastal defence investment programme. We are exploring whether any specific changes should be made to reflect local circumstances – such as communities that have been frequently flooded in the past, communities that are more economically vulnerable, smaller communities, and communities in need of greater property-level measures to resist flood water. We are also exploring how we can ensure timely and wider financial contributions to assist with the pace of developing a flood scheme and how we track progress of the overall programme.
Part 2: Property Flood Resilience policy
Ways of accelerating Property Flood Resilience (PFR), which includes measures people can take to help reduce flood damage to their property, and enable faster recovery. In the Policy Statement we committed to ensure buildings, important infrastructure sites and key public services are better prepared to manage flood risk. This will help us identify actions to facilitate this policy and address any barriers to progress.
This documents provides further information on the proposals: https://consult.defra.gov.uk/…/Local%20factors%20in…
Once you have read the document, if you wish to contribute to the call of evidence following this link: https://consult.defra.gov.uk/…/loca…/consultation/intro/
