Helping residents become more resilient to flooding and securing funding for alleviation schemes are two of the ways Staffordshire County Council says it plans to manage risks in the future.
Residents, businesses and other organisations across the county have been asked to help shape plans to manage flood risks in a public consultation that closed this week.
A draft version of Staffordshire County Council’s flood risk strategy was presented to the authority’s cabinet at its latest meeting.
It outlines a series of planned actions, including identifying communities at risk, investigating flooding incidents, helping to make businesses and residents more aware and resilient, and working with communities to develop flood alleviation schemes.
Cllr Simon Tagg, cabinet member for environment, infrastructure and climate change, said:
“Our county has experienced at least 15 significant storm events since 2000, with nine of those occurring between 2018 and 2022 – these events have highlighted the need for an updated local flood risk management strategy, which takes into account the lessons learned from past flooding incidents in the county and national policy changes.
“We are revising our emerging draft strategy to ensure our county is prepared for future flood events. We’re confident our revised strategy will help us better prepare for future flood events and protect our county’s residents and infrastructure.
“Climate change is an impact on this and we can have an impact ourselves locally as we bring nature back, start planting trees and do that in a way that relieves flooding issues further downstream.
“Our team are looking into that closely and aligning it with things we do in our climate change and carbon reduction agenda.”
Cllr Simon Tagg, Staffordshire County Council
Cllr Alan White, leader of the county council, highlighted the increasing transformation of residents’ front gardens from grass patches to block paving over the past two decades. He said:
“Water runs straight off into the drains, which causes flash flooding issues which then lead to the flooding in people’s houses they complain about.
“I’m wondering whether or not there is something we can do with the local planning authorities about people’s overall desire to tarmac everything over. I imagine there was quite a lot of water absorbed by lawns and patches of grass in the old days, which now sloshes straight into the road.
“One of the areas I get regular complaints is because the entire road has now got cars on block paving, on what was effectively the front garden – and the poor person at the bottom of the street in Fazeley finds themselves the recipient of a tidal wave of water that comes down it.”
Cllr Alan White, Staffordshire County Council
