Environment Agency Blog: Jeremy Walker, chair of the innovative ‘Slowing the Flow’ project in North Yorkshire, explains how a range of land management measures are helping to reduce flood risk in the market town of Pickering. The project, which was officially completed this autumn, was recently opened by Defra Secretary of State Elizabeth Truss.
The beautiful National Park of the North York Moors comprises a plateau with deep valleys. The rivers flowing off the moors rise rapidly after heavy rain – and there is plenty of rainfall to feed them! The towns and villages in the Vale of Pickering on the south side of the moors are particularly prone to flooding. Pickering itself has flooded four times since 2000, but costs of conventional defences are not affordable. After the 2007 floods, when DEFRA were seeking bids to look at alternative ways to reduce flood risk by using natural processes, a local partnership came together and made a successful application to demonstrate how this could work in practice, in two neighbouring catchments – Pickering Beck and the River Seven.
The resulting ‘Slowing the Flow’ partnership project works with nature to help alleviate flood risk. It uses a wide range of measures which work together at the catchment level to mitigate flooding downstream, as well as to provide multiple benefits to local communities. To read more go to: