Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Cabinet Office, Home Office, Environment Agency, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Emma Hardy MP and The Rt Hon Steve Reed OBE MP Press Release
Date: 12.09.2024
The Taskforce will co-ordinate flooding preparation and provide long-term, strategic thinking to better protect communities.
A new Floods Resilience Taskforce to turbocharge the development of flood defences and bolster the nation’s resilience to extreme weather has convened for the first time, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Steve Reed announced today (Thursday 12 September).
The Taskforce brings together the Secretary of State and Floods Minister Emma Hardy with representatives from Defra, MHCLG, Home Office, Cabinet Office, the Environment Agency, the Met Office, Local Resilience Forums, Mayoral Offices, emergency responders and the National Farmers Union, among others.
The expert group discussed how they will speed up and co-ordinate flooding preparation and resilience between central government, local authorities and community responders, and emergency services.
The group will also use their collective experience and knowledge to identify and protect vulnerable areas, including championing the delivery of drainage systems, flood defences and natural flood management schemes in communities.
This comes as the current Met Office outlook suggests autumn is likely to be wetter than usual.
The Taskforce also outlined its plans to take a long-term, strategic approach to the challenges of flooding. This will support better protection for families across the country, as well as underpinning the resilience of the economy to the growing threat of climate change. These challenges include ensuring that funding for national infrastructure remains sustainable into the future.
5.5 million properties in England are at risk from flooding and the country has just experienced the wettest 18 months on record (to February 2024) following extreme weather including Storms Babet and Ciarán.
The next meeting of the Taskforce will take place in early 2025 and will discuss longer-term oversight of wider flood resilience strategy and investment, as well as any rapid learning on the response to major flooding.
Last week, Floods Minister Emma Hardy also met with representatives from the insurance industry to discuss the role they can play in building a resilient nation. The meeting explored the support insurers can provide to their customers, which includes raising more awareness and take up of Build Back Better, which can provide for up to £10,000 in addition to like for like flood repairs to enable future resilience of a property.
In August, the government also launched the Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure, which is backed by £40 million and will be the first UK-wide network looking to understand the impact of extreme weather conditions across the country, identifying where incidents are likely to occur and planning to limit their impact.
For more information and for a link to the original press release, please click here.
