Your Regional Flood and Coastal Committee needs you!

Flood Action week was a timely reminder of the devastating impacts flooding can have on peoples’ lives and livelihoods. Yet we know that only around a third of people in high flood risk areas believe that they are risk.

This especially alarming given that climate change is only increasing this risk. Since 1998,?England has had six of the 10 wettest years on record, and this year there were three named storms in one week for the first time.

With the increased extreme weather events brought on by the climate emergency, it is vital that people living in areas at risk of flooding to act now to protect their home, possessions and family.

As Director of Flood Risk Strategy in the Environment Agency, I work with a wide a range of partners to help deliver the ambitions of the Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy. These are for a nation is ready for, and resilient to, flooding and coastal change.

Our Regional Flood and Coastal Committees (RFCCs) have a really important role helping to create climate resilient places. They do this by working with the Environment Agency, other risk management authorities and those developing FCERM projects.

Adrian Lythgo, Chair of the North West RFCC, has summed it up brilliantly:

“RFCCs are at the heart of influencing local priorities for flood and coastal risk management. They couldn’t do this without the skills, insight and experience of their members.

As a member you have the chance to influence the choices and decisions made about flooding and coastal erosion in your local community. This ranges from influencing plans for engineered flood and coastal defences that protect thousands of properties, through to nature-based solutions and property flood resilience. Together, these help communities to better prepared for flooding when it happens as well as achieving wider benefits for local areas.

The risks and challenges faced by each local community vary tremendously. It is really important that the membership of the committees reflects the diversity of the communities in the region.

If you are interested please do apply.”

As an independent member of a Committee you will be able to:

• Approve the programmes of work that help better protect the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people across the country
• Help create local partnerships to pay for, build and manage the projects in these programmes
• Make sure we can adapt to our changing climate by making communities more resilient and able to adapt to the challenges

We’re advertising right now for new independent members, with roles across the country. It’s really important to us to get applications from a really wide range of backgrounds so that our committees encourage and promote diversity and inclusion.

So, if you want to take action and make a difference in your community, we want to hear from you. You can watch short videos and read more about the wide range of roles we have available on our national recruitment website. Please take a look and apply!

Julie Foley , Director of Flood Risk Strategy, Environment Agency