Flood and coastal resilience innovation programme
In the 2020 Budget, the government announced a £200 million fund for this programme. The flood and coastal resilience innovation programme will help meet the aims set out in the:
- government’s policy statement on flooding and coastal erosion
- Environment Agency’s National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England
The programme 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 this funding, projects will demonstrate how practical innovative actions can work to improve resilience to flooding and coastal erosion. These ‘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.
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