Wealden Flood Prevention and Preparedness Project
A total of 861 households in Hellingly, Uckfield and Pevensey Bay benefited from a combined initiative by Wealden District Council and East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service during 2014-2016 to raise awareness about flood prevention.
Doorstep visits by firefighters, community volunteers and Police Community Support Officers have more than doubled the number of homes who are now more aware and therefore flood prepared.
Working in partnership with East Sussex Fire & Rescue, Parish Councils, East Sussex County Council and the Environment Agency, Wealden has been helping target those households where there is a higher flooding risk with advice and useful information about preparing for and coping with flooding.
Online toolkit
Following the Hellingly pilot project, an evaluation report was produced. One of the recommendations of this report was to produce an on-line toolkit for all other Town/Parish councils, to help and encourage them to co-ordinate similar projects in their local areas. The idea is that local councils would use their community stewards/volunteers, with assistance (where available) from ESFRS volunteers to co-ordinate and deliver door-to-door visits. Alternatively they may choose to run a single element of the project, for example just undertake a leaflet / information drop.
The elements of the online toolkit are:
- Quick guide to running a flood awareness project in your area
- Evaluation form template
- Evaluation form guidance notes (brief guidance on how to analyse and learn from the data)
- Flooding and Drainage; Guidance for Property Owners Leaflet
For the second phase of the project, two more communities at the highest risk of flooding or the effects of flooding in the Wealden district were targeted; these being Uckfield and Pevensey Bay. Evaluation reports have been produced for both of these projects, and are listed below:
Wealden Property Flood Resilience Project 2017 – 2019
Following the successful ‘Flood awareness and preparedness’ project that ran from 2014-2016, the Council allocated some money from its reserves to help those Wealden residents who are most at risk of flooding, to protect their properties.
This project was run in partnership with the Environment Agency. It enabled homeowners at the highest risk of property flooding to have a free property survey completed. This survey identified how the property could be made more flood resilient and listed recommendations. Grant funding was then available to enable homeowners to purchase the recommended flood resilience products.
During phase 1, 31% (57 total) of targeted residents took up the offer of a free property survey. Of the 57 homeowners who had surveys, 27 went on to obtain grant funding and install flood resilience measures.
A complete evaluation of phase 1 of this project can be viewed here.
Phase 2 of this project has just been completed (December 2019), it saw another 37 properties install flood resilience products.
Across the two phases of the Wealden Property Flood Resilience Project 2017-2019 over £127,000 worth of flood resilience products were installed in homes across Wealden thanks to a successful partnership between Wealden District Council and the Environment Agency.
For information on the latest flood protection products and services visit the National Flood Forum website.
The latest weather information can be accessed from the Met Office website, on the MET Twitter page or on the MET Facebook page . This website also contains useful information about what to do in the event of severe weather – search ‘severe weather’.
For information on flooding:
- from a sewer, call Southern Water on 0845 278 0845.
- from the sea or river, call the Environment Agency on 0345 988 1188.
- from the highways, call ESCC highway authority on 0345 60 80 193.