First Flood Resilience Taskforce meeting in wake of ‘wetter than average August’
As we received fresh warnings from the MET office of a likely wetter than usual Autumn, a brand-new government Flood Resilience Taskforce has met for the first time. The taskforce is intended to enhance the nations flood defences, providing long term strategic thinking to better protect communities and reinforce the nations resilience to extreme weather driven by climate change.
Flood Minister Emma Hard, alongside Secretary of State, Steve Reed, led the initial meeting. Bringing together representatives from Defra, MHCLG, the Home Office, the Cabinet Office, the Environment Agency, the Met Office, Local Resilience Forums, Mayoral Offices, emergency responders, the National Farmers Union and other key organisations..
Our latest blog looks in more detail at the makeup of the taskforce, its plans to tackle the increasing risk of flooding in our communities, which Caroline Douglass, Executive Director for Flood and Coastal Risk Management at the Environment Agency, warned will only become more pressing as climate change brings more extreme weather, in addition to rising seas levels. Protecting people and communities must be the top priority she explained.
We’ve witnessed firsthand what a ‘wetter than usual autumn’ can entail, as September was plagued with flood events. Heavy rainfall and flooding submerged a road in Bedfordshire, while at AFC Wimbledon’s football ground a huge hole formed, causing part of the pitch to completely collapse due to the heavy rainfall.
A number of houses and roads have been flooded in central and southern England, as some areas have seen a month’s worth of rain in a matter of hours. The A421 was closed between Bedford and Milton Keynes due to flooding. In Hertfordshire vehicles became stranded in flood water. In Merseyside, part of the M58 was closed after being submerged. While in Northamptonshire, some roads look more like shallow rivers, such as the aptly named Hardwater Road, south of Wellingborough.
Further afield, large areas of central Europe were hit by deadly flooding. Over 20 were sadly confirmed as dead, after the deluge devastated entire regions in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Areas along the Czech-Polish border was among the worst-hit, with the Czech Republic experiencing the worst flooding in over 27 years, according to local NGO Člověk v tísn. The river Oder burst its banks, making Ostrava one of the worst affected towns. In Poland, more than 5,000 soldiers were deployed to help people in the south of the country, including 40,000 residents evacuated from the town of Nysa.
Following the devastation we’ve seen in September, various ministers expressed concern over the weather affecting parts of the UK. Anneliese Dodds, the minister for women and equalities, commented that she was “very concerned” by flooding in her east Oxford constituency and the “impact this is having on local residents, schools and businesses”.
There are a staggering 5.5 million properties in England at risk from flooding, with the country having recently experienced the wettest 18 months on record (to February 2024), as well as warnings from the MET office of another Autumn and Winter of destructive floods, the taskforce discussed how they will accelerate and co-ordinate flooding preparation and resilience between central government, local authorities, community responders, and emergency services.
The group will also collaborate to identify vulnerable areas, while collectively supporting the delivery of drainage systems, flood defences and natural flood management schemes in communities. The Secretary of State criticised the historical delivery of flood schemes, arguing that they have been too slow and have left communities under water.
The Taskforce also outlined its plans to take a long-term, strategic approach to the challenges of flooding, which will ultimately support better protection for families across the country, as well as underpinning the resilience of the economy to the growing threat of climate change. Importantly these challenges include ensuring that funding for national infrastructure remains sustainable into the future.
Emma Hardy, Chair of the Flood Resilience Taskforce, described the climate crisis as “the greatest global challenge we currently face”, and outlined the devastating impact flood events can have on livelihoods. She vowed to work closely with partners to ensure projects remain on track, which will not only protect homes but will create more green jobs and drive investment in our communities.
Early September 2024, the flood minister also met with representatives from the insurance industry to explore the role they can play in building a resilient nation. The meeting highlighted the support insurers can provide to their customers, which includes raising more awareness and take up of Build Back Better, which sets out the government’s plans to support growth through investment in infrastructure, skills and innovation, and can provide up to £10,000 in addition to like for like flood repairs to enable future resilience of a property.
The Environment Agency will remain the Government’s primary partner for the delivery of flood defences and continues to support the construction of hundreds of projects across the country. Recognising the scale of the challenge, Environment Agency teams have been prioritising the construction, maintenance, and repair of key flood defences including the Thames Barrier.
This new Taskforce will look at the range of resilience measures available to provide options to reduce flood risks in more communities – and importantly will play their part to ensure essential projects are delivered across the country.
The Taskforce plan to convene again in early 2025, when they have a clearer picture of exactly what a ‘wetter than average’ Autumn looks like. This will give the group an opportunity to discuss the longer-term oversight of wider flood resilience strategy and investment, as well as any rapid learning on the response to major flooding.
The Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure was also launched in August 2024, an innovative long-term programme which, for the first time in the UK, joins up monitoring the whole hydrological system, to improve resilience to floods and droughts. The £38 million project will establish a nationwide Floods and Drought Research Infrastructure, offering near real time data to the hydrological community. The UK Centre for Ecology will lead this project & Hydrology and will deploy instruments for observing our water environment – including measuring evaporation, soil moisture, weather, groundwater and river flows.
While all these actions are welcome, they are not quick fixes. As yet another wetter than average Autumn approaches, it is important that if there is somewhere that you don’t want water to be, that you have adequate flood defences in place. Because the thing about water is that it gets everywhere.
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