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Defra officials visit Brigstock
This week, we welcomed a group of flood professionals from Defra to Northamptonshire to showcase some of the work being delivered across the Harpers Brook and Wootton Brook catchments. Throughout the day, they were able to see how Property Flood Resilience (PFR), community preparedness and Natural Flood Management (NFM) are being brought together to create a more resilient future for local communities.
The visit began at Harpers Court in Brigstock, an independent living scheme owned by Amplius, where attendees were shown how a combination of carefully designed Property Flood Resilience measures has helped improve the resilience of the building.
Working alongside installation partner Watertight International, we demonstrated many of the measures that have been installed throughout the property, before carrying out live wet tests to show exactly how the flood windows and barriers perform when faced with 600mm of water.
We even saw Juan Scouller, Head of Flood Risk, Resilience and Insurance Policy from Defra, volunteer to install one of the barriers himself to experience just how straightforward they are to put in place.
More than physical measures
While physical resilience measures are an important part of the picture, the visit also highlighted the work that has taken place to help residents feel prepared and supported.
Residents have received a flood preparedness box and can access to personalised flood plans and local alerts through the Resilico digital platform, enabling them to understand exactly what actions to take before, during and after a flood. The app also helps residents manage ongoing maintenance of their resilience measures.
The Defra team also heard how local volunteers from the village have become ‘flood buddies’, providing additional support to Harpers Court residents should flooding ever occur.
The visit continued to nearby homes where residents shared their own personal experiences of living with PFR. They talked through the install process, and how the measures are helping them to feel more comfortable and confident in their own homes.ย It’s always very humbling to hear the impact the works is having on people’s day to day lives.
Looking beyond individual properties
After lunch at Brigstock Village Hall, kindly hosted by Sally Wilks, the group headed to Rush Meadow Ponds to explore another important part of the RAIN project – Natural Flood Management.
Here, our project manager, Sarah Parr, alongside Lee Gower from Nene Rivers Trust explained how interventions across the landscape can help slow the flow of water before it reaches communities downstream.
Landowner Hugh Shrive also shared why he chose to adapt parts of his land to support neighbouring villages and the wider catchment – while also boosting biodiversity habitats. Modelling indicates that the NFM measures in the surrounding area are projected to reduce peak river levels by around 9cm.
Although that may sound like a relatively modest reduction, in flood risk management it can be significant. Those few centimetres can make the difference between flood water entering a property or remaining below the doorstep. When replicated across multiple locations throughout a catchment, these interventions create a cumulative effect that contributes to improving flood resilience across entire communities.
The group enjoyed walking around the meadows – and we were lucky to spot many dragonflies, damselflies and red kites during our walk (and also a friendly cattle herd!).
A collaborative approach
The visit demonstrated that improving flood resilience is about far more than any single intervention.
Whether it is installing Property Flood Resilience measures, helping residents to ‘be flood ready’, supporting communities through local volunteers or working with nature to slow the flow of water upstream, every element plays a key role. Every piece of the resilience jigsaw creates the bigger picture.
Our thanks go to everyone who took the time and joined the visit from Defra, as well as our project partners including Watertight International, JBA Consulting, HR Wallingford, Amplius, the Environment Agency, Nene Rivers Trust, and Mary Long-Dhonau OBE.
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The RAIN Project is funded by Defra as part of the ยฃ200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programmes, which is managed by the Environment Agency. The programmes will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate.
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