Innovative action plan gets funding to reduce the impact of flooding

Spearheaded by five local Lead Flood Authorities across the region, the West Yorkshire Flood Innovation Programme (FLIP) has just been achieved a successful bid for £160k local levy funding from the Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee to get it off the ground.

Learning from the programme will be shared across organisations to help others deliver similar projects successfully across the region, nationally and internationally.

Councillor Naheed Mather, Kirklees Council Cabinet Member for Environment, said: “It’s great to see West Yorkshire have been awarded funding to kick start this programme, which will aim to find innovative solutions to protect our communities from flooding, not just in winter but all year round. We’re looking forward to working with our neighbours and seeing what the potential outcomes from the this joint programme of work.”

Yorkshire’s Integrated Catchment and Solutions Programme (iCASP) funded by the National Council of Environmental Research based at University of Leeds will provide scientific lead for the programme and independent evaluation.

Professor Joseph Holden, Director of iCASP, said: Professor Joseph Holden, Director of iCASP, said: “We need to predict the future potential for flooding and build resilience by combining many different approaches rather than rely on individual interventions. Our role will be to make sure that the latest scientific evidence is used to test new techniques and to develop innovative solutions that work.

“We will support the design of novel world-leading approaches to improving flood resilience suitable for different types of locations, risks, catchments and communities.”

West Yorkshire’s five lead Local Flood Authorities originally submitted a bid for funding from the Government’s £200m Resilience Innovation Programme which although was unsuccessful, had support from the Environment Agency, academic partners, community based groups, Third Sector organisations and Yorkshire Water.

Since then, partners continued to pursue alternative sources of funding for their innovative proposals.