A project which aims to reduce Keswick’s flood risk has got a £50,000 boost. West Cumbria Rivers Trust’s Resilient Glenderamackin scheme has been given the cash by Lloyds Banking Group. The project is one of the largest catchment-based projects in the country and supported by The Rivers Trust and Nature Finance. It aims to deliver nature-based solutions to reduce flood risk to Keswick whilst restoring nature and mitigating against climate change in the 142sq km Glendermackin catchment. 0 1 -01-2024 The Flood Hub … Spring 2024 News Letter. Up to date information accross the Region. 1 8-01-2024 UK Parliament [ Committees ] Flood resilience eroded by poorly maintained defences with Government in the dark on progress. Number of protected properties could continue to dwindle from current levels of at least 40% fewer than planned Committee concerned at development continuing in areas of clear flood risk. 1 7-01-2024 Environment Agency and Fujitsu According to the New Civil Engineer (12 Jan 2024) “The Environment Agency has defended its decision to continue its flood alert warning contract worth £19.5M to tarnished Japanese software company Fujitsu, despite its involvement in the Horizon Post Office scandal.” 13- 01-2024 COMMENT: See any similarity, Lives severely impacted, financial loss, mental health affected. Defra , Government Departments/ (Levelling up, Communities and Housing ) could be likened to the PO. They are the equivalent body for Flood victims ? How many communities have been denied Flood defences, or are waiting for Flood defences to be installed ? Or can longer get any insurance or sell their houses. Or didn’t received any Government help when they were flooded, because there wasn’t enough Flood Victims, to meet the EA cost/ benefit criteria, for obtaining help. There were 16,000 houses flooded in 2015, but there have been many storms since. The misery and stress that floods induce, is incalculable. I wish a film maker would come and make a film of what happened to my village. We tried to sue the EA but it was hopeless. In the recent round of honours, the Deputy Director of the EA Kate Marks, received a gong for services to the Environment. Despite the situation regarding Sewerage and lack of help and flood defences for Floodies. Siriol Hogg 05/12/2023 Letter sent to the I and the Guardian by Lynne Jones MBE In the decades to come water will be an increasingly vital resource. Nationally we will need to be able to efficiently transfer water from water rich areas to those experiencing drought AND manage the water storage infrastructure in such a way that it does not create a flood risk for communities downstream of reservoirs. Should we be relying on these greedy, dishonest water companies to prepare for that challenge with their background of using any wriggle room, that loosely worded legislation offers them, to get permission to charge their customers more and more, whilst shareholder profits and director's salaries go on unchallenged and unquestioned? FULL text is here 05-12-2023 E A and United Utilities Raw Sewage reporting at Windemere World Heritage Site. BBC News / Panorama Dec 4 2023 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67567323?xtor=ES-208- [67188_NEWS_NLB_DEF_WK49_MON_4_DEC]-20231204- 09-03-2026 THIRLMERE Letter to ‘Reminder’ Editor. Lynne Jones KFAG In 2010 United Utilities (UU) agreed to a regime to provide some storm space in Thirlmere reservoir to reduce Keswick’s flood risk. By 31 March 2026, UU has to (routinely) apply for a new licence to abstract water from the reservoir, with the Environment Agency (EA) due to decide on the application in early April. UU’s abstraction licence renewal application expressly excludes the operation of the agreed storm space regime. UU claims it does not believe the EA would grant them the licence with the KFAG regime in place. KFAG was not given any warning of the unilateral breaking of this long-standing agreement protecting our community. 1 5-11-2023 NAO Press Release: Resilience to flooding The Environment Agency (EA) has cut its forecast for the number of additional properties that will be better protected from flooding by 40% since plans were first unveiled in 2020, according to a new report by the National Audit Office. EA estimates that inflation accounts for between a half and two-thirds of this reduction. Resilience to flooding sets out that EA has reduced its forecast of the number of properties it will be able to better protect by 2027 from 336,000 to 200,000, a reduction of 40 per cent. In addition, EA is removing 500 of the 2,000 new flood defence projects that were originally included in the programme. This is despite government doubling its capital funding in England in the six years to 2027 to £5.2 billion to combat the danger of flooding. Full article is here 16-11-2024 NEWS from Environment Agency 2 National News ( The Guardian ) 15-11-2023 Flood protection plans for English homes cut by 40% Quarter of new flood defence projects will also not go ahead, NAO finds, as Environment Agency blames cuts on inflation Link to article is here 16-11-2024 NEWS from Environment Agency 1 National News ( The Telegraph ) 15-11-2023 “More than 200,000 homes in danger as money runs out to fix flood defences Shortfall of £34m means thousands of properties have been left at greater risk, says National Audit Office” Link to article is here 0 9-09-2023 ENVIRONMENT AGENCY 08-20 23 ENVIRONMENT AGENCY The EA are concerned that people are not registering with their flood warning service because of the new Emergency Alerts system which the government rolled out a few months ago - see About Emergency Alerts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for more information on these. You really do still need to have access to the flood warning system so be sure your contact details are correct and update if necessary. The new system is simply intended to be an additional alert to warn of a number of forms of danger nearby, such as fire, severe flooding or extreme weather; they apply to severe situations, and will be based on your location at the time. This differs from the EA flood alerts and warnings which you register to receive based on your home location or place of interest. This new system may issue an Emergency Alert in relation to flooding, but this would be in the case of an extreme situation which corresponds to one of our Severe Flood Warnings. The EA flood alert system gives details way beyond the point where there is flooding with danger to life. As a reminder, a Flood Alert means that flooding is possible and you should be prepared. A Flood Warning means that flooding is expected and immediate action is required. About Emergency Alerts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 11-0 7-2023 National Flood Forum Truste We are looking for additional Trustees to join our committed Board. Our Trustees play a vital role in driving forward the vision of the Charity, supporting the CEO and contributing to safeguarding the future of the organisation. ssue includes updates on NFF activity, new projects, flood action groups and the government approach to sustainable drainage systems and a lot more. If you wish to know more about the role and how to apply … Link here h t t p s : / / n a t i o n a l f l o o d f o r u m . o r g . u k / w p - c o n t e n t / u p l o a d s / 2 0 2 3 / 0 7 / T r u s t e e - pack-v1-100723.pdf 18- 07-2023 Environment Agency. Time to check your ‘Flood Alert’ Details. iCheck and update your information in your flood warnings account, or tell us if you no longer need warnings. You can do this online at https://www.gov.uk/sign-up-for-flood-warnings. 03 -05-2023 National Flood Forum Newsletter Spring 2023 This issue includes updates on NFF activity, new projects, flood action groups and the government approach to sustainable drainage systems and a lot more. We also include details of our forthcoming arts exhibition highlighting the experience of flooding and how to enter your work as well as paying tribute to Phil Awford, an unrelenting campaigner and great friend of the NFF. 03- 05-2023 Environment Agency. Link to “Incidence Response” This what the EA do and how they handle an Incident. Text and Video presentations of how it all works. Posted by “The Flood Hub” 24- 04-2023 Environment Agency. A quick guide to the Environment Agency telemetry network. Andrew Booth Telemetry Technical Specialist November 2022 27 -04-2023 Multi Benefit Reservoirs. New report on water supply reservoirs and their use in flood risk reduction from the EA. Environment Agency Utilisation of Public Water Supply Reservoirs for Flood Risk Benefit – Operating Framework. Long report detailed on EA site. 2 1-04-2023 New Civil Engineer (Magazine) Snippet 21 FEB, 2023 BY ROB HAKIMIAN Environment secretary Thérèse Coffey has demanded that water companies share their plans for improving Britain’s water infrastructure to improve water quality and reduce unnecessary overflows. 12- 04-2023 EA changes to automated Flood Warning System. I am literally seething about this. The NFF are challenging it within the All Party Parliamentary Group but I will write to our MP, Trudy, from KFAG as well. My response to the NFF (who had already flagged up the hassle of people being anxious and moving furniture unnecessarily) was: 12-04-2023 EA changes to automated Flood Warning System. We have been trying to get the flood forecasting more incident specific and informative NOT making things a whole lot worse. The whole article from EA and KFAG comments are here … 28-02-2023 From NFM Natural Flood Programme: Evaluation Report Natural Flood Management (NFM) can manage flood and coastal erosion risk by protecting, restoring and emulating the natural processes of: catchments - rivers - floodplains - coasts It includes: re-meandering of rivers - restoration of wetlands - targeted woodland planting B26 were catchment scale pilots led by risk management authorities 34 were community scale pilots led by local groups and charitiesetween 2017 and 2021, we invested £15 million of government funding in the NFM programme. The programme was made up of 60 pilots across England: 31-01-2023 UNITED UTILITIES Long term plans for Crummock Water, Chapelhouse Reservoir and Overwater. We've been working with key stakeholders including the Environment Agency, Natural England, Lake District National Park Authority, National Trust, landowners, local authorities and other interest groups to develop long-term plans that would maintain access for visitors, while sensitively returning these water bodies back to a more natural state. Before any work begins, we arranged the first in a series of community drop-in sessions in October 2022 to share our initial proposals. We're planning to hold further update sessions in February 2023 on the following dates, with further sessions planned in September 2023. 30-01-2023 Plans to restore Crummock Water back to nature Once all customers in West Cumbria are supplied by the new pipeline from Thirlmere, United Utilities will stop abstraction for public water supply from Crummock Water, Chapelhouse reservoir and OverwaterStart 24-01-2023 Environmental catastrophe in The Lake District Amazing response to the latest film from the Save Windermere campaign. “Our Fish are Dying” Please continue to share the film across social media as this is the best way to gain traction on the video. The more people that know what happened, the better. We need justice for all the wildlife that we lost on that day on the Cunsey. 14-01-2023 Missing Environment Agency flood Data. Information 'could cost lives' - BBC News Also noticed is that the EA are frantically pumping out the Somerset levels. I wonder if they have done all their environmental studies to find out if they might be causing any damage to any species by protecting communities? One rule for one? 08-01-2023 GOV.UK Site Working together adapting to changing climate - flood and coast. This project explored how authorities work with communities on future planning and decision-making to help reduce flood and coastal erosion risk. Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) research reports’ GOV.UK subject.. RFCCs are shadowy authorities, largely unknown to Flood Groups Volunteers. Maybe a better way of recruiting cannot be found, but meanwhile at least all of the RFCC’s aught to have ONE member from a FLAG ? 07-01-2023 Lynne Jones via Facebook: Thirlmere and Rain Not much wriggle room left in Thirlmere, just 40cms tonight and that will soon be gone I suspect. The Met Office promises another unsettled week ahead as a succession of Atlantic fronts bring regular bouts of rainfall/showers, totals adding up more over and to the west of the Pennines where the majority of the coming week’s rainfall will descend. 31-12-2022 Lynne Jones via Facebook: Thirlmere Releases United Utilities started making the additional releases for some storm space at noon today. Going to be a tad wet over the next few days and into next week but currently there are no specific warnings for our area. 09-11-2022 Lynne Jones: Thirlmere Releases (Additional) Thanks to United Utilities for starting the additional releases from Thirlmere as the level passed 3m. We will need all the storm space if it is a warm wet winter. Doesn't take long for that reservoir to fill up. Drought threats a distant memory. 16-11-2022 RFCCs … Observations by Siriol Hogg ( From Facebook Group 16th Nov 2022 ) As you may be aware, there are 12 Regional Flood And Coastal Committees in England. RFCC’s members are drawn from the EA /or co- opted from Councils. Having attended a few RFCC’s, I came to realise that there were almost no Flood Action Group Members on them, or women. Council Co-Opted members (in the short time of their tenure) , cannot hope to learn all the many myriad of strands relating to flooding, as It is a huge learning curve. Plus they cannot afford to focus all their time on one subject. Often FLAG members can, because they are mainly made up of people who have been flooded, and are passionate about the subject.. RFCCs are shadowy authorities, largely unknown to Flood Groups Volunteers. Maybe a better way of recruiting cannot be found, but meanwhile at least all of the RFCC’s aught to have ONE member from a FLAG ? 28-11-2022-11-2022 Multi Agency Group Meeting. Very useful virtual multi agency meeting earlier this week resulting in a plan to meet up with the council's engineer to tour our key culverts and drains. That way the details of surface water issues can be passed onto the local teams who have to maintain them. Keen to make this work so fingers crossed. Lynne Jones from Facebook KFAG page 16-11-2022-11-2022 NATIONAL FLOOD FORUM AUTUMN NEWS LETTER We hope you enjoy our Autumn 2022 Newsletter with the latest information on new projects, policy and stories from our Flood Action Groups. 01-10-2022 On 30th September a very heavy but relatively short rainfall event occurred over northern Cumbria, and particularly over the Borrowdale area. Significant flooding was experienced in Borrowdale, with the BBC reporting that one farm lost 58 sheep: 14-10-2022 FLOOD RISK REDUCTION [ Letter from Rod Donington-Smith to “The Keswick Reminder” It is that time of year again when trees shed their leaves, many of which become soggy and end up clogging roadside gutters and gullies (drains). Often gullies cease to take in water off the road simply because their grates are blocked by leaves and other debris – a problem that can often be easily resolved by clearing the debris off the grates. It is not so easy when gutters are filled with leaves, which will be quickly washed down to replace the ones that have just been removed! It is better to identify and report highways drainage problems early, including blocked gullies, to Cumbria CC using its website www.cumbria.gov.uk (go to Highways in the roads, travel parking section) or by telephoning 0300 303 2992 rather than waiting until flooding becomes a problem. Due to staff cuts the Council has less staff to monitor its highway drainage systems so is more important than ever for the public to report problems. RDS 05-10-2022 Report on sudden heavy rainfall event 30-09-2022 [ Dr Mark Roberts for KFAG ] Comparison of Rainfall Event on 30th September 2022 with other Major Rainfall Events On 30th September a very heavy but relatively short rainfall event occurred over northern Cumbria, and particularly over the Borrowdale area. Significant flooding was experienced in Borrowdale, with the BBC reporting that one farm lost 58 sheep: Sheep 'swept away' during Borrowdale flash flooding - BBC News