The Environment Agency has extended the deadline to submit Expressions of Interest to participate in its £200 million flood and coastal resilience innovation programme from 15 January 2021 to 29 January 2021.
The government announced a £200 million fund for the programme in the 2020 Budget, which will allocate £150 million of the £200 million to 25 local areas. For some, a local area might be a county, city, town or village. For others, a place could mean a river catchment, a tidal estuary or part of the coast. On average each area will receive £6 million between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2027.
With the funding, projects will demonstrate how practical innovative actions can work to improve resilience to flooding and coastal erosion. The ‘resilience actions’ can be individual or a combination of actions. Resilience actions might include:
- nature based solutions
- sustainable drainage systems
- approaches for making existing properties more flood resilient
- encouraging local businesses to improve their flood resilience
- building community and voluntary sector capacity to respond and recover
The remaining funding will be used for other flooding and coastal resilience activities. This will include work on long term planning for climate adaptation in the Thames and Humber estuaries, the Severn Valley and Yorkshire. In these areas, they will develop new ways to better plan for future flooding and coastal change and adapt to a changing climate.
The aims of the innovative flood and coastal resilience programme are to:
- encourage local authorities, businesses and communities to test and demonstrate innovative practical resilience actions in their areas
- improve the resilience of 25 local areas, reducing the costs of future damage and disruption from flooding and coastal erosion
- improve evidence on the costs and benefits of the innovative resilience actions and demonstrate how different actions work together across geographical areas
- use the evidence and learning developed to inform future approaches to, and investments in, flood and coastal erosion risk management
Types of innovation the Environment Agency is looking for include:
- combinations of actions that maximise overall resilience
- broadening the range of resilience actions
- increasing uptake and achieving resilience actions
- eligible resilience actions
- integrated water management solutions
- nature based solutions
- community infrastructure resilience
- monitoring and management of local assets
All projects from the successful local areas must be led by a single lead local flood authority (LLFA) or coast protection authority (CPA) and each local area can have more than one project.
The Environment Agency anticipates the programme will run from 1 April 2021 until 31 March 2027.
Click here for detailed information about the the programme and the application process.
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