Flood resilience spending programme gets the green light
Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Our Executive has approved approximately £6 million in grant funding to better monitor, respond and adapt to changing flood risks over the next 6 years.
We were one of 25 councils to be successfully shortlisted for funding under the Environment Agency’s Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme.
The project will advance our capacity around emerging flood technologies and unlock new ways of working with partner organisations and communities in Central Bedfordshire. We'll submit a final business plan to the Environment Agency in June 2022 to set out a package of works and draw down the funding.
The project will manage flood risk using technology for Pix Brook, encompassing parts of Arlesey and Stotfold in Central Bedfordshire and Letchworth Garden City in neighbouring Hertfordshire.
Funding will enable pilot schemes for the testing of new remote sensors to gather real time data, influence flow and make changes to the way existing flood infrastructure is managed.
Councillor Ian Dalgarno, our Executive Member for Community Services, said:
This grant-funded project will assist us in very important targeted flood management and prevention work. The area of Pix Brook has a long-standing history of flooding and water quality issues.
This innovative project will see significant investment made to improve the management of flood risk and provide greater resilience against the threat of future flooding in the area.
The next steps are for an outline business case, to be completed and submitted to the Environment Agency before the end of June 2022.