THE NATIONAL FLOOD FORUM The importance of communities in natural

flood management

Heather Shepherd Flood Community & Recovery Support

heather.shepherd@floodforum.org.uk

www.floodforum.org.uk

Supporting and Representing Flood Risk Communities 1

Living with floods

Supporting and Representing Flood Risk Communities 2

CR NFF

Flood Action Groups Their community - Their vision

Supporting and Representing Flood Risk Communities 3

CR NFF

Ready to lead in partnership to make it happen

Supporting and Representing Flood Risk Communities 4

CR NFF

Flood Action Groups Involved in NFM

Sarah Halford from Diddlebury in Shropshire

Mike McCarthy from Shipston in Warwickshire

Sarah Lunnon from Slad Brook in Gloucestershire

Supporting and Representing Flood Risk Communities 5

Diddlebury Flood Action Group

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Diddlebury Flood Action Group

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Diddlebury Flood Action Group

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Shipston Area Flood Action Group (SAFAG)

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Recent Flooding

1998/2007/2008/2012/2013/2016

• 2nd highest risk location in Warks(2/40)

• Affects 1 town and 6 villages, • 130 properties/businesses• Creating regular flood stress • Post flood clear ups and costs • Difficulty in selling homes • Insurance issues

Restrict height to 3.4m for approx 7 hours

Could be in excess of 3,000,000m3 water

Shipston 9th March 2016the need to ‘slow the flow’

River Stour at Shipston bridge

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Normal flow

In flood

NFM Research Visits

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Stroud, Gloucestershire

Pickering Beck, YorkshireWitney, Oxfordshire

• Attendance at and presented to numerous flood summits in last 3 years

• Hosted & presented to RFCC 2016

Honeydale Farm, Gloucestershire

Extensive catchment field walks

Witney, Oxfordshire

River Stour Catchment NFM Proposals

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Upstream

520 ha of catchment afforestation. Canopy interception around the catchment source

90 x Large woody and coarse woody debris dams

280 ha of forested water retention areas. Altered woodland management/coppicing

420m of hedgerow reinstatement.

Middle / Confluences

340 ha of floodplain and riparian afforestation to increase floodplain roughness.

24 x Offline ponds : Semi-permeable areas of storage to de-synchronise peak flows

160 ha of enhanced buffer strips. Increased riparian roughness

Downstream

30 x Clay bunds. Points of raised earth to intercept key drainage pathways

22 x Offline ponds. More permanent features with larger capacity for storage and longer retention

44 x LWDs - often larger than those upstream due to larger fluvial profiles

SAFAG barriers identified

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• Remove barriers to progress and unlock the potential of community based groups.

• Be bold, optimistic, apply common sense and local knowledge whilst continuing to building evidence. (Think big, act early).

• Active buy in and support from relevant Agencies. Converting Agency statements into action eg “The solutions to flooding are local”.

• Make “Slowing the Flow” on a catchment scale, a funding priority.

• Secure major funding for remainder of interventions.

• Address/understand grant schemes, land use policies and incentives.

SAFAG knows what it wants to do, where and how.

Could we be a pathfinder for similar size catchments within the UK?

Future Challenges

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• Securing ongoing funding streams.

• Convincing land owners of the benefits of NFM.

• Continue in ‘joined up working’ with Politicians, Multi Agencies and numerous Charities.

• Recognising there are no silver bullets, and we are involved in running a marathon, not a 100m sprint!

• Jump the ‘hurdles’ and maintain the progression

Slad Brook Flood Action Group

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