Communicating with the public about flood risk management plans: Tenbury Wells town
Tenbury Wells flood risk management
Since 2015, the United Kingdom (UK) government has allocated £2.6 bn to enhance its protection against flooding and coastal erosion. In 2020, this budget doubled to a record of £5.2 billion investment to build around 2’000 new flood and coastal defenses and better protect 336’000 properties.
Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, England, is a town located in the River Teme and Kyre Brook’s flood plains. On several occasions, most recently in November 2019 and in February 2020, large parts of this town got flooded. In response to the recent floods, in July 2020, the government dedicated an additional £170 million to boost defense projects’ construction to drive growth and benefit local economies. £4.9 million of this budget was assigned to Tenbury to develop a flood risk management scheme.
The Environment Agency (EA) was the organization in charge of designing the flood risk management plans to protect homes and businesses in Tenbury. As a result of this project, a mix of new flood walls and barriers will be built to reduce flood risk to 120 residential and 145 commercial properties. Ground investigation and site survey work will start in early 2021, and construction of the scheme would commence in March 2022.
Communication with the public
A critical part of risk management projects is communicating the knowledge with society. An editorial article on this matter is also featured on the website, which could be found here.
In the Tenbury Wells project, people are given information about the flood risk management plans by several means:
a) A webpage on the UK government’s website and a phone line, called Floodline, have been specified for the people to check if their property, like their residence or place of work, is in the new warning area.
b) The EA has published its flood and coast erosion risk management strategy in a document to explain how it will work with communities to deliver the government’s plan.
c) Several ways have been designed to enable people to get informed about the scheme. As told by Dave Edwards, EA’s flood risk management team leader, due to the coronavirus restrictions, it is not possible to hold face-to-face meetings. Instead, several alternative ways have been designed for information exchange:
- A virtual engagement room has been created, which the residents of Tenbury Wells can visit until the end of January 2021 to get informed of the flood risk management scheme.
- As all people might not have access to the website, two facilitated telephone calls will also be held on the 26th and 28th of January at 11 am and 6 pm, respectively, for approximately one hour. The phone calls will provide precisely the same information as the virtual engagement room, and people ask any questions.
- And finally, information is spread by information boards implemented in several locations around the town.
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