NFM Update: Wootton Brook catchment

We’re proud to be delivering a series of natural flood management (NFM) projects across the Wootton Brook catchment. The aim is to help reduce flood risk, improve biodiversity and work with nature to make communities more flood resilient. Here’s a brief update on what we’ve been working on:

🌱 Penvale Park, East Hunsbury: A series of bunds and leaky dams have been completed in partnership with East Hunsbury Parish Council. These help to hold back excess water during periods of heavy rain, reducing flood risk to nearby homes.

🌿 Quinton: We’re currently developing an exciting large-scale NFM scheme that could be our largest scheme yet. The current plans focus on the creation of new wetland areas, ponds, bunds and extensive tree planting. It’s in the feasibility stage with aspirations to break ground in 2026. We will share updates as this progresses.

🌳Upper Catchment Forest Work: In collaboration with the Environment Agency and Forestry England, we’re planning works to slow the flow in woodland areas. This includes tree hinging, gully stuffing & ‘beaver-mimicking’ features. The works will be take place over 2025 & 2026, with research currently taking place on the best approach.

🌼Horton: Agricultural land on a farm near Horton have been transformed into species-rich grasslands to improve soil health & increase water storage in the field, improving resilience. The mix has been specifically selected to help attract birds.

🌧️ Horton: The farm is also creating wetland scrapes to hold water during storms, reducing pressure on the neighbouring brook.

🌲Tree and Hedgerow Planting, Wootton & East Hunsbury: As part of WNC’s Tree Strategy launch, 20 large standard Elms were planted in the catchment with support from Wild about Wootton, WNC Rangers, Cllr Breese and our project team. The trees were funded and organised by RAIN. We’ve also delivered trees for Blacky More Park and hedgerow planting across the catchment, and supply trees to Grange parish.

🐝SuDS in Schools: In addition to engineered NFM programmes, we’ve been exploring opportunities for Sustainable Drainage Solutions using innovative planters to capture rainwater & ease pressure on local drainage networks. We have so far installed planters in six primary schools in the catchment, thanks to a partnership with Anglian Water Services, and are researching the potential of adding another in a community-based setting.

We’re excited to be progressing these nature-based solutions and will share updates as each project moves forward.

As ever, a big thank you to our project team, partners, the parish councils, local landowners and communities for your continued support.

Want to learn more about Natural Flood Management?

To help explain what these projects involve, and how they’re making a difference, we’ve created a leaflet that gives a simple, easy-to-understand overview of our work.

Whether you’ve spotted activity near your village or you’re just curious to learn more, the leaflet offers a snapshot of:
🌿 What Natural Flood Management is
📍 Where our key project locations are
💧 How features like wetlands, leaky dams, re-meandering rivers and cover cropping all work to slow and store water
🐦 The wider environmental benefits for habitats, soil and biodiversity.

These projects form part of our catchment-wide, nature-based approach to flood resilience, working in harmony with local landowners, farmers, communities and schools

👉 Download a copy of the leaflet here.

If you have any questions, we’d love to hear from you: rain@westnorthants.gov.uk.

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The RAIN Project is funded by Defra as part of the £200 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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Natural Flood Management Leaflet

At the RAIN Project, we’re working across Harpers Brook and Wootton Brook in Northants to deliver a series of Natural Flood Management (NFM) projects that not only help to reduce flood risk, but also bring lasting benefits to local wildlife, biodiversity and communities.

To help explain what these projects involve, and how they’re making a difference, we’ve created a leaflet that gives a simple, easy-to-understand overview of our work.

Whether you’ve spotted activity near your village or you’re just curious to learn more, the leaflet offers a snapshot of:
🌿 What Natural Flood Management is
📍 Where our key project locations are
💧 How features like wetlands, leaky dams, re-meandering rivers and cover cropping all work to slow and store water
🐦 The wider environmental benefits for habitats, soil and biodiversity.

These projects form part of our catchment-wide, nature-based approach to flood resilience, working in harmony with local landowners, farmers, communities and schools

👉 Download a copy of the leaflet here.

If you have any questions, we’d love to hear from you: rain@westnorthants.gov.uk.

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The RAIN Project is funded by Defra as part of the £200 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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Wetland Works: An Update

Our contractors, Ebsford Environmental, have now arrived onsite at Brigstock and work has started on the creation of a wetland to help improve flood resilience along Harpers Brook.

🚧 Please be aware 🚧

👷 Our contractors are using heavy plant and machinery.

🚶 Access to the site remains open, although we’d appreciate it if people could avoid the area wherever possible during the works, for everyone’s safety.

The works should take approximately two weeks. We’ll do our very best to keep access open, however some disruption may be possible at times. Please bear with us – thank you.

Should you have any questions, please contact the project team: rain@westnorthants.gov.uk.

Thanks to you all for your patience as we bring this important project to life!

You can view the location of works here: https://what3words.com/blesses.masts.restored

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The RAIN Project is funded by Defra as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Resilience 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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Be Flood Ready: How to Prepare for Flash Flooding

With the Met Office issuing yellow weather warnings for thunderstorms and heavy rain across parts of the UK this weekend, there’s an increased risk of surface water and flash flooding.

When we are deluged with heavy rain, particularly when we’ve had such dry weather, the ground is unable to quickly absorb the rain and this increases the risk of flooding.  It can therefore happen suddenly or when you least expect it. Now is a good time to check your flood preparedness and take a few simple steps.

Make a Flood Plan
A Household Flood Plan helps you stay calm and act quickly in an emergency. There is a helpful template on our home page that you can access here: https://rainnorthants.co.uk/be-flood-ready/

Alternatively, you can download Flood Mary’s free ‘Flood To Do’ list here:
https://floodmary.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Household-flood-to-do-list-2025.pdf

Be sure to store it somewhere safe, within easy reach, and make sure everyone in your home knows where to find it – that way you can easily grab it and know what steps to take should you be concerned about flooding.

Be Flood Ready – Quick Tips

• Sign up for free flood alerts from the Environment Agency – please note, these don’t include surface water risk: https://www.gov.uk/sign-up-for-flood-warnings
• Move vehicles to higher ground ahead of the storm
• Keep a flood kit ready with:
  • Torch and spare batteries
  • Mobile phone and charger
  • Warm clothes and waterproofs
  • First aid kit
  • Bottled water and snacks
  • Insurance documents
  • Any prescription medicines or baby care items
• Know how to switch off gas/electricity at the mains
• Move valuable documents, keepsakes and electronics upstairs or to higher shelves, or place on trestle tables
• Use buckets or crates to raise furniture
• Plug sinks and weigh them down to help prevent backflow
• Never walk or drive through flood water: 30cm of fast-flowing water can move a car, and 15cm can knock you off your feet
• Take photos of your rooms now, in case these are needed from an insurance point of view at any time in the future.

Watch & Learn
Flood resilience champion Flood Mary has created a short, practical video with some excellent flood resilience tips. You can watch it here:

Stay Informed

• Follow your local news channels and weather bulletins for the latest information
• Get updates directly from the Met Office:
  https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/warnings/uk-warnings.html
• Check local river or surface water levels, and talk to neighbours about any concerns
• Visit www.floodmary.com for useful tips and free downloadable resources
• Take a look at the BeFloodReady website for further information.

Take a few moments to get ready and if you can, check in on any vulnerable neighbours or family members too. Preparing now could save you valuable time.

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The RAIN Project is funded by Defra as part of the £200 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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Guest Blog from ‘Flood Mary’: Preparing for a Flood

Guest Blog kindly written by Mary Long-Dhonau OBE – www.FloodMary.com – property flood risk champion:

When a flood is imminent. We naturally want to protect our homes from the awful impact a flood can have. But what if we can’t afford to install flood barriers or doors? Or what if we are waiting for them to be installed and a flood is on its way?

The following suggestions won’t be as good as certified barriers, but they will help reduce the amount of flood water that will get into your home.

Firstly, it’s important that if you get flooded from a river, you have signed up for a Free Environment Agency flood warning, then when you receive it, you can get going! https://www.gov.uk/sign-up-for-flood-warnings

If you are at risk of surface water flooding, do listen to weather warnings/local radio if it starts raining extremely hard. You’ll have to act quickly, so it is really important that have written a flood plan. Know what you want to move out of harms way first. Don’t forget your car. You don’t want a flooded house and a flooded car!

If you have airbricks fit wide aluminium tape over them. One large roll will cover many airbricks. It can be bought online if needed. I have recently tested this in a flood simulation tank and not a drop came through!

For any external doors, put wide waterproof aluminium tape up to about .6 metre up the doors and along the bottom of the door (if it does start to leak, leave it in place, it will be holding back a huge volume of water!) and/or using the aluminium tape, fix a large piece of plastic over the door and weigh that down. You can also cut a large piece of wood to size and using silicone sealant that ‘goes off ‘very quickly, you could fit this over the door openings (you’ll need some solvent to remove it afterwards). This will need cutting to size in advance of any flood. You can also make wooden slots to slot the wood into and then seal it.  This will need advance preparation and have where its stored written into your plan.

If you can invest in some large absorbent cushions (they are a bit like babies’ nappies for giants!)  they will help soak up any water that does come through the gaffer tape. You may be able to share the cost of a box with neighbours. They are also useful for soaking up water after the flood, as each one can absorb up to twenty litres of water.

If you have a small child’s deflated football, push that down the loo, it will help to stop any sewage coming through the drains. Failing that, fill a couple of heavy-duty rubble sacks doubled up for strength, with soil and push that down the loo. Shut the lid and use the gaffer tape to hold the lid down. Also put the gaffer tape over any downstairs shower drain, if you have one and then put something heavy on top of it.

It’s always good to have a collection of lidded plastic boxes ready to store things in and take them upstairs.

If you live in a bungalow, use the boxes and see if a friend or relative can look after your sentimental belongings for you. (Add that to your flood plan.) Also store things on higher shelves and on top of wardrobes.

Fold your curtains over the curtain track or tie them in a big knot.

You can put four large wellington boots on the legs of your kitchen table and put the contents of your kitchen cupboards on there. (Big flower vases, plastic litter bins and even cut-off 6-pint plastic milk bottles will do the job. You can use this method for anything with legs.)

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Breaking Ground in Harpers Brook

Natural Flood Management update:

We have put our hard hats on as contractors have moved on to site in the Harpers Brook catchment. Our project manager Sarah Parr has today been out in the catchment with Paige and Zav from Ebsford Environmental, as work begins on creating offline storage and bunds on a local farm.

We’re working closely with the landowner to help slow the flow of water across his land, with the aim of reducing flood risk impacts further downstream.

Further updates on our series of NFM projects will follow soon.

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The RAIN Project is funded by Defra as part of the £200 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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