£15 million funding allocated for natural flood defences

As part of the government’s drive to roll out innovative techniques to reduce flood risk, schemes across the country have been allocated £15 million worth of funding.

The Floods Minister Thérèse Coffey has announced that new allocations of flood management funding will allow homes, businesses and communities across the country to benefit from increased flood protection.

34 projects have been named winners of a £1 million government funded competition and will now be able to realise their innovative plans to use landscape features such as ponds, banks, meanders, channels, and trees to store and drain flood water.

24 other projects have 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 £1 million of funding.

These allocations come from the £15 million of natural flood management funding which was announced in March.

Thérèse Coffey, environment minister, 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.”

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.”