Local Flood Risk Management Strategy

Our objective is to work in partnership to build the resilience of our communities to flood risk and climate change.

As a result, communities in Buckinghamshire will be more resilient, making them better able to prepare and respond to flood events and the changes brought about by climate change. The actions we will be undertaking to address this objective are set out in our action plan.

Developing community resilience enables communities to use local resources and knowledge to help themselves during an emergency in a way that complements the local emergency services. Being prepared and able to respond to an emergency can often help people to recover more quickly.

Understanding flood risk at a local level and planning and taking appropriate action will help communities become more flood resilient.

Communities can work in partnership with key agencies to manage their flood risk by forming a flood action group, creating a community flood plan, and considering the potential for developing a community flood scheme. Community involvement is at the heart of the local strategy and the national strategy.

Within flood risk areas, the best way for a member of the public to be involved in the management of flood risk is through a Flood Action Group. Flood Action Groups are a representative voice for their community and the aim of them is to work in partnership with the agencies and authorities whose work involves flood risk. Through the groups, members of the public can work on behalf of the wider community in finding ways to reduce flood risk. There are currently Flood Action Groups in the Willows Estate in Aylesbury, Buckingham, Chesham and Hughenden Valley.

There are many resources available from Buckinghamshire Council's Resilience team about how to create an emergency plan for your community:

• Join or find a local flood action group
• Create an emergency plan for your community
• Planning for emergencies are you ready

We are currently working towards building community resilience to flood risk and climate change by:

• Working with Buckinghamshire Council's Resilience team to engage with targeted communities to develop community resilience, Flood Action Groups and local flood plans.
• Working with the Environment Agency to run Flood Mobile events in Buckingham and High Wycombe
• Ensuring mental health impacts are factored into recovery planning.
• Working with water companies to promote resilience through Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan actions and initiatives such as the River Chess Smarter Water Catchment project
• Working in collaboration with the community to help protect homes and businesses by developing modelling techniques and a flood warning service for groundwater flooding as part of Project Groundwater.

Please refer our Action Plan for other ongoing projects we are carrying out across Buckinghamshire.

The risk of flooding can never be completely eliminated. However Buckinghamshire Council can prepare by considering emergency responses to flood events and proactively planning our response, which can help to reduce the consequences of flooding.

Flood incident response is managed by the Resilience and operational teams such as Highways. The Lead Local Flood Authority do not have an operational role, but we may provide support and technical advice during significant events.

There are three primary plans which set out the multi-agency response to floods in Buckinghamshire:

• Multi-agency Tactical Flood Plan for the River Thames
• Multi-agency Tactical Flood Plan for the River Great Ouse
• Thames Valley Local Resilience Forum Multi-Agency Flood Plan

These are primarily focussed on responding to fluvial flooding and are activated either upon receipt of information by the Environment Agency or an otherwise undeclared flooding emergency which requires a response.

The plans set out the command structures and actions undertaken by the different responders. Flood incident response is co-ordinated by the council's Resilience team.

Whilst forecasting and warning for fluvial flooding is well established, predicting surface water flooding and groundwater flooding caused by intense rainfall, increased precipitation and prolonged above-average rainfall is more problematic.

Flood Guidance Statements are sent to the Resilience team from the Flood Forecasting Centre for Category 1 and 2 responders to help them with their emergency planning and resourcing decisions. Broad scale projections are made for river, surface water, tidal/coastal and groundwater which, if deemed significant by the Environment Agency in terms of the potential impacts in Buckinghamshire, could trigger a multi-agency plan response.

We will encourage communities at risk from river flooding to sign up to the Environment Agency's free flood warning service which provides advance notice of when flooding from rivers is likely to happen and time to prepare. The flood warning service does not include flooding from most ordinary watercourses or surface water.

You can sign up for flood warnings on GOV.UK.

At present there is a limited service of groundwater flood warnings offered by the Environment Agency, which covers parts of Buckinghamshire. Through Project Groundwater's Alerts workstream we will develop a web-based flood warning service to alert communities to potential groundwater flooding incidents. Warnings will support communities to better prepare and respond to groundwater flooding, reducing the negative impacts on physical and mental health.