21 Feb 2024

The Environment Agency has launched a campaign to highlight the risks of growing high-risk crops, which can lead to pollution and flooding, in the South West of England Parts of Cornwall and north and east Devon are considered at risk due to underlying soil types, slope and proximity to sensitive watercourses, roads and properties. Inadequate […]

07 Feb 2024

The Environment Agency has published new guidance on Shoreline Management Plans (SMPs), which help to deliver the ambitions of the National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy. They set out a planned approach to managing flood and coastal erosion risk around the coast of England to 2105. There are 20 SMPs covering the English coast. You can […]

30 Jan 2024

A new map-based digital tool will make plans for shoreline management easier to access, understand and use for coastal practitioners and the public alike, the Environment Agency has announced. The Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) Explorer will enable coastal practitioners and local planners to find the information they need more easily. It will also improve the Environment Agency’s […]

30 Jan 2024

Helen Wakeham, Director of Water Transformation at the Environment Agency delivered a keynote speech at the annual Coastal Futures Conference in London. Here, Helen shares her thoughts on the history and future of our estuarine, coastal, and marine environments and how the Environment Agency and others can make a real difference. Over the past thirty […]

22 Jan 2024

The Government does not know if it is making the UK more resilient to flooding. In a new report, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warns that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has no overall numerical target for the UK’s level of long-term flood resilience, and so cannot know if it is […]

17 Jan 2024

The Environment Agency has announced that £730,000 has been made available to support local projects to protect and enhance fishing in local communities through the Fisheries Improvement Programme (FIP). 2024 will be the 10th year of the Fisheries Improvement Programme, investing in English rivers by funding projects to protect and improve fish stocks and habitats, […]

20 Dec 2023

Defra and the Environment Agency have published new guidance on when to use hydrological and hydraulic modelling as part of a flood risk assessment for a planning application, and the expected standards. It includes modelling standards, information needs, methodologies, climate change allowances, impact on off-site flood risk, quality assurance, uncertainty, reporting and more.

13 Dec 2023

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Steve Barclay, has written to water companies asking them to improve maintenance programmes to ensure these are not a cause of storm overflow discharges. He highlights this is a legal requirement that water companies should already be delivering and states his plans to closely follow […]