What's the future for flood and coastal risk management in England?

Overview

The Environment Agency is working with partners to develop the future direction for flood and coastal erosion management in England and wants to hear from organisations, groups and individuals from across the FCERM community.

Working as one flooding and coastal risk management community

Managing flood and coastal erosion risk is a shared responsibility and takes a collective effort across risk management authorities, communities and other partners.  The Floods and Water Management Act and subsequent national FCERM strategy for England set out the responsibilities of those various bodies and the immediate priorities post 2010. 

However, much has happened in the last 7 years and the challenges of managing flood and coastal erosion risk are growing.  Collectively we need to make sure we're fit for the future.  Reviewing our strategic direction is one way in which we can do that and the Environment Agency is very clear that doing it collaboratively will strengthen our collective approach and help us to create an ambitious and long-term vision for a resilient country.

Managing those challenges in the future will require even greater collaboration between the partners involved in managing flood and coastal erosion risk.  For risks to be managed well we need to coordinate our actions and listen to each other's priorities, needs and concerns.  We believe that by doing this the outcomes will be collectively owned and delivered because they are important to all.

What’s happening now

We are at the beginning of what the Environment Agency hopes will be a big conversation involving lots of different partners through lots of different routes - surveys, workshops, conversations at conferences and other events.  We have started working with a small group of partners (water companies, local authorities, charities and the private sector) representing the different types of bodies involved.  The focus of that early engagement is to help us scope the conversation we need to have and suggest how best to reach a wider audience.  You can find a summary of the engagement we've done so far here.

FCERM partners at our November workshop:

But we want to hear your voices in this scoping stage as well.  We've prepared a short questionnaire that leads you through our thoughts so far and asks questions about priorities and values.  We've included space for free text too so if what's important to you isn't included then you can tell us.  The survey will take around 20 minutes to complete and there are links to some additional material within it if you want to find out more.

Nothing you write will be attributed to you, or your organisation.  There will be further opportunities for you to have your say.  You can register your interest in shaping the future of flooding and coastal management and we will email you to alert you of future opportunities to contribute.

We will publish a summary of responses through this e-consultation tool.