New Plan for Increased Resilience to Flooding

A delivery plan to make Wales more resilient to coastal flooding has been officially launched by Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

Since the devastating storms that hit communities along the coast of Wales 12 months ago the priority has been to repair and restore defenses damaged in the storms.

The delivery plan issued yesterday outlines how the 47 recommendations made by NRW in April 2014, following an in-depth review into the impacts of last winter’s flooding, are being implemented. It details progress to-date and what more needs to be done, by all the organisations involved.

Five of the actions have already been completed with work on another 35 well under way, including:

• Ongoing work to evaluate improvements at locations around the coast of Wales which either experienced flooding or came close to flooding during last winter’s storms. For example, local improvements have been made for areas that flooded in Rhyl, with work ongoing to evaluate longer term options.
• The Welsh Government has launched its consultation on ‘Flood and Coastal Investment Program’, which looks at how future investment in defenses should be prioritized.
• Continued work developing flood plans for flood risk communities through NRW’s Flood Awareness Wales program, including signing up a further 1,156 people to the free Floodline Warnings Direct service.
• A permanent offshore buoy deployed off the Pembrokeshire coast to improve flood forecasting.
• Preparatory work for a major coastal flooding exercise in March 2015.
• Publication of the assessment of environmental change experienced during the storms.

Work on the remaining seven recommendations will begin in January 2015.

Jeremy Parr, Head of Flood Risk Management for NRW, said: “The aim of this delivery plan is to make further improvements to the support to communities before, during and after a flood, working together with local authorities, the Welsh Government, emergency services and responders and with communities.”

The delivery plan focuses on six areas: Sustained investment in coastal risk management, Improved information on coastal flood defense systems, Greater clarity of roles and responsibilities of agencies and authorities, Assessment of skills and capacity, More support to communities to become more resilient, Delivery of locally developed plans for coastal communities.

Press Release