Rye Brook - Wrington

Profiling Partnership Funding October 2014 North Council - £100K Summary Wessex Water - £150K Many properties in Wrington have been repeatedly flooded from the Rye Brook and Developer Contribution - £32K surface water runoff from the surrounding FCRM GiA - £308K hillside. By developing a partnership approach a scheme is being delivered that is more Local Levy - £80K acceptable to the local community and provides protection to a greater number of properties.

The opportunity to reduce flood risk

The scheme promoted by Council is to reduce the risk of flooding to the village. It involves the upgrade of a flood relief culvert to maximise the conveyance through the centre of the village, and creating an upstream attenuation area to limit peak flood flows passing downstream through the village. Property Level Protection measures are also provided to manage the residual risk of flooding.

When complete, 79 properties will benefit from an improved level of flood protection for events. The most vulnerable properties flooded on average Key Issues between every two and five years at present. This A history of flooding within the village had a will be reduced to a 2% chance of occurring in any significant impact on residents who were directly year (1 in 50-year) once implementation of the impacted by flooding of their properties, and on the scheme is complete. wider community due to impacts on transportation and access to properties and services. The complex combination of flooding, from minor watercourse, surface runoff and sewer capacity, called for a solution with multiple aspects. Managing expectations of solutions that are practical, feasible, and affordable, and the timescales in which they can be delivered is also crucial.

Engagement and partnership working

Assessment of flood risk identified that flooding of Vital statistics properties was caused by a combination of factors, requiring a solution with multiple elements to Scheme costs - £670K (whole life) resolve the solution. The project demonstrates the Government's aim of identifying multiple Total FCERM economic benefits - £4,836K beneficiaries of projects to provide partnership

UNCLASSIFIED 1 of 2 UNCLASSIFIED funding to a scheme. Without this funding the scheme in Wrington will significantly benefit the wider scheme would not have been affordable. village.” The wider scheme was progressed because there was a strong driver to deliver benefits to the wider community. Taking measures forward in combination made the scheme more affordable.

Strong supporting evidence on the causes and impacts of flooding helped initiate the partnership approach to progressing the scheme. This provided a shared understanding of the risk of flooding and the benefits working together to deliver mitigation measures would bring. Repeated flooding in 2012 helped build a relationship with the community. This led to well supported community engagement sessions and regular newsletter updates being provided to keep them informed of progress. The Ward Member and the Council are members of the project board. This helps keep them informed and enables them to deliver key messages to the community and to get greater feedback from the community to feed into the project plan. Involvement of the Environment Agency and Wessex Water in developing the project proposals from the outset helped information sharing and ensured the Project Appraisal Report was robust and advocated by all project partners.

People North Somerset Council Project Manager - Doug Barker North Somerset Council Project Delivery Team - David Fish and Jason Reading Environment Agency Advisors - Paul King and Stuart Elks Wessex Water Advisor - Martin Tidman

Partner perspective

Cllr Peter Bryant, the North Somerset Council's executive member for the environment, said: “We have been working hard to address problems in areas with known flood risk since North Somerset was badly hit by floods in 2012. The flood relief

UNCLASSIFIED 2 of 2