On Thursday 22 September we held our first Cambridgeshire Flood Groups Conference, at the Club in Alconbury Enterprise Campus.
The event was organised by the Community Flood Action Programme team (part of Cambridgeshire County Council’s Flood Risk team) and aimed to bring Cambridgeshire’s community flood groups together to share knowledge in combatting flooding.
The conference was attended by local residents, members of flood groups, parish and town clerks and staff from surrounding lead Local Flood Authorities and was sold out two weeks before the day!
The day included presentations in the morning and early afternoon from the Flood Risk team, a local flood group, the Environment Agency, AECOM, Flood Re, Sedgwick International and the National Flood Forum as well as a workshop from Communities Prepared later in the afternoon.
The presentation slides are available and if you would like a copy or more information, please email CFAP@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
Conference 2022 highlights
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Cambridgeshire County Council's Flood Risk Team
Charles Krolik-Root, Programme Manager of the Community Flood Action Programme kicked off the presentations on the first Cambridgeshire Flood Groups Conference. He explained what the Council’s Flood Risk Team does and talked about current and future projects across the county.
Watch Cambridgeshire County Council's Flood Risk Team's presentation (YouTube)
Alconbury Brook Flood Group
Charles Dalleywater, Chair of Alconbury Brook Flood Group started his presentation by giving a brief history of flooding in the area and moved on to the origins of the flood group. He followed with current and future projects as well as lessons learned from the group’s progress so far.
Watch Alconbury Brook Flood Group's presentation (YouTube)
AECOM
Matt Tandy, AECOM’s Associate Director - Water for UK and Ireland - talked about the history of flooding across the country and specifically in Cambridgeshire and gave an introduction about flood risk and the different types of it. He also discussed different mitigation measures and touched upon Property Flood Resilience (PFR) measures homeowners can installed in their own properties.
Watch AECOM's presentation (YouTube)
Environment Agency
Tamsyn Ellway, Flood Resilience Advisor started her presentation explaining how the Environment Agency forecasts flooding. She continued by talking about the EA’s flood warning service and how community flood groups can help with flood risk mitigation.
Joe Pugsley, Flood Risk Management Advisor discussed in great detail the EA’s current and future flood risk projects in Cambridgeshire.
Watch the Environment Agency's presentations (YouTube)
Middle Level Commissioners
David Thomas, Chief Executive of Middle Level Commissioners started his presentation by explaining what the organisation does, how it works and what is an Internal Drainage Board is. He also talked about the uniqueness of the flood risk in the area.
Watch the Middle Level Commissioner's presentation (YouTube)
Flood RE
Kelly Ostler-Coyle, Flood RE’s Head of Communications gave a brief presentation about who Flood RE are, the challenges the organisation faces at the moment and talked about the Build Back Better scheme which was introduced in April 2022.
Watch Flood RE's presentation (Youtube)
Sedgwick International UK
Ian Gibbs, Sedgwick’s National Technical Manager explained what flood resilience is, the difference between resistance and recoverability and the process of flood resilience. He also talked about what property flood resilience is in practice and which are the current challenges in the industry.
Watch Sedgwick International UK's presentation (YouTube)
National Flood Forum
Sanjay Johal, National Flood Forum’s Community Engagement Manager gave a presentation entitled ‘Supporting Communities at Flood risk’. He started off with some flood facts and continued with the information about the work the National Flood Forum does and how to collaborate with them.
