The Government has committed to building at least 300,000 new houses each year to satisfy the demand for new homes. The Wildlife Trust is calling for a visionary approach to house building in the UK given the sheer number of homes required. Their innovative recommendations will help to combat flooding and include permeable drives, rainwater run offs, wildflower verges and many more. You can read the full article here.
Mary Dhonau ‘Queen of Floods’ has written a really useful article. Having been flooded herself she has become an acknowledged expert on flooding. In this article she gives an overview of the flood protection measures that can be taken by property owners to protect their home or business from flooding. She details the different protection measures available.
Sometimes circumstances are such that the flood water can not be held back. If this happens and your property floods; then it needs to be able to recover as quickly as possible. This is flood resilience and in this article Mary explains the measures that can be taken to make a property flood resilient.
Her article talks about the role of the Property Care Association and its role in ensuring quality flood protection work is carried out.
You can access Mary’s advice here
Flood Re was set up to help people who live in flood risk areas to get affordable flood insurance for their homes.
Previously, homeowners struggled to get insurance to protect them if their homes had previously been flooded. If they could get a quotation, there wasn’t a choice, the premiums were high and the excess charged often exorbitant.
Flood Re set out to change that! In the first year it has written policies for 127,326 homeowners. “Before the introduction of Flood Re, only 9% of householders who had made prior flood claims could get quotes from two or more insurers, with none being able to get quotes from five or more,” notes Flood Re on its website. “Now, 95% of those households that had previously made flood claims have access to two or more quotes and 84% can get quotes from five or more insurance providers.”
If you are one of the 4.4 million people whoe home is at risk of flooding, you should check if your insurance provider has signed up to Flood Re.
To discover more about the impact of Flood Re Read more
The European Research Council has funded The FloodChange project. This project analysed data from 38 European countries between 1960 and 2010 to understand shifting patterns in river flooding.
The project found that in Western and North-eastern Europe the timing of river flooding has shifted forward by at least 15 days over the 50 year period. This means that in the UK spring flooding begins earlier.
As river flooding affects more and more people, the project anticipates that the costs of flooding will escalate by a factor of 5 over the next 30 years.
