- Vikki Salas, Assistant Director, West Cumbria RT & Amy Heys, Catchment Director, Environment Agency The Rivers Trust Autumn Conference 2017

1. The Challenges of Bringing Together
Catchment Partnerships with Flood
Action Groups
Amy Heys – Catchment
Director, Environment Agency
Vikki Salas – Assistant Director,
West Cumbria Rivers Trust

2. Background
• Where we were before Storm Desmond (December 2015)
• What has changed since then?
• Setting up of Catchment Management Groups
Key Challenges
• Inclusion of community and flood action groups
• Bringing Catchment Partnerships and Catchment Management Groups together
• Funding
Conclusions

3. Where we were?
CaBA Catchment Partnership (WCRT host)
-Mainly water quality and biodiversity based
-Mainly organisations
Cumbria Strategic Partnership (flood partnership)
-West Cumbria Rivers Trust included
-Struggling to get information to share with Catchment Partners

4. What has changed?

5. What has changed?

6. What has changed?

7. Projects that will
result in flood risk
reductions to
communities at risk
Information sharing
Community representatives
Sharing of work programmes /
schedules
Catchment Management Groups (CMGs)
“To enable action to be taken across the river catchments in Cumbria
that will reduce flood risk to communities and achieve wider
environmental benefits.
This will be achieved through collaboration between the existing
catchment partnerships (run through the Catchment Based Approach)
and the Risk Management Authorities (defined under the Water
Management Act) identifying and utilising multiple funding streams”

8. CMG Benefits
• Buy-in :
- Lead Local Flood Authority (Cumbria Country Council)
- Environment Agency flood risk staff as well as catchment staff
- Farming reps: NFU, Farmer Network, Foundation for Common Land, CLA
- Community representative for catchment (flood action groups)
• CMG Working Groups for delivery:
- Led by range of members e.g. A66 flood scheme Working Group led by Highways England
- Local community representatives / local flood action group on Working Group
• Different funding mechanisms
- E.g. Wind farm community funding to deliver NFM upstream of Dovenby
• Sharing of knowledge and expertise

9. Key Challenges
Inclusion of Community and Flood Action Groups
• Proactive passionate individuals
and groups
• Well developed structures
within communities
• Local knowledge
• Local and wider influence
• Emotionally charged
relationships
• Lack of trust and lack of
communication
• Fear of voice being lost in a
bigger partnership
• This is one subset of the
community

10. Key Challenges
Bringing Together Catchment Partnerships and
Catchment Management Groups
CMG:
Catchment-based approach
(to flooding) + multi benefits
Catchment Partnership:
Good working relationships
delivering multi-benefit solutions
Community reps from Flood Action
Groups “people vs fish”
Other community representatives?
True scope and ambition of CaBA only
being realised with Risk Management
Authority buy-in
Flood priorities lever in more funding
opportunities

11. Key Challenges
Funding
• Resource intensive
• Funding from Regional Flood Coastal Committee (RFCC) for CMGs
until July 2018
• July onwards???
True scope and ambition of CaBA in West Cumbria only being now
being fully realised with 2 x FTE staff

12. Conclusions
That major floods bring misery
and an opportunity to change
No one organisation has the
answer to flood risk reduction so
inclusive partnerships are
essential
Inclusive partnerships need
tactical and operational structures
to create change on the ground
Need to integrate flood and water
quality “total catchment
management”
Whilst differing funding
mechanisms are in place this is
difficult – flood defence grant-in
aid, WFD grant-in-aid
Needs properly funded