Some property owners in Bradford and Leeds are being urged to take part in a survey to capture the effectiveness of flood products installed historically to help protect these communities.
The study is being carried out this Autumn as part of the Yorkshire Flood Resilience Property Flood Resilience (PFR) Pathfinder – one of three DEFRA funded projects of its kind across England. The overall aim of the pathfinder is to increase the effective use of PFR across Yorkshire and reduce flooding.
iCASP is supporting the Yorkshire Flood Resilience project by monitoring and evaluating the impact of change in peoples’ perception, attitude and behaviour towards property flood resilience measures.
Property flood resilience is a term used to describe measures that can help reduce the risk of flood damage to our properties, speed up recovery and help us to move back into our properties quicker after flooding. These measures are installed in our homes or businesses to make them less vulnerable to flooding.
This study is being led by Shelley Evans, JBA’s Northern Flood Resilience Hub Lead and iCASP Impact Translation Fellow and Dr Ben Rabb, iCASP Impact Translation Fellow.
Its aim is to help understand:
- The experiences of individuals and communities who have PFR already installed at their homes
- The impact and effectiveness of using the PFR measures
- How PFR has been installed, used, maintained and stored to date
- Experiences of residents
- securing flood insurance,
- signing up for EA flood alerts/warnings
- creating individual or community flood emergency plans.
Shelley Evans said: “This study is part of a project which aims to increase the awareness of PFR across Yorkshire and boost its uptake in the future, helping effective flood management and making affordable flood insurance all the more likely.
“Using PFR enables households and businesses to reduce the damage and stress caused by floods, making the process of recovery and reoccupation easier.
“The PFR we are observing dates back to 2012, so it’s important that we get some insight into how effective the products have been over that time period. Our findings from these communities will be given to Bradford and Leeds councils.”
- The first stage of this study is to understand how PFR has been installed, used, maintained and stored. Residents are asked to complete a short questionnaire on flood risk and PFR. The team can help with this process by completing this on the residents behalf over a short planned phone call.
- The second stage of the study will involve a visual inspection of the PFR measures installed at the property. The team can be flexible with their approach and so encourage residents to make contact to discuss an arrangement suit.
Residents being asked to take part in the survey are in Shipley, Keighley, Wortley, Potternewton, Bramley, Thorner and Garforth.
If you have received a letter from either Leeds City Council, or City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, please contact the JBA Resilience Team tel: 07435 985394 or email Emily.Christopherson@jbaconsulting.com or Maria.Botterill@jbaconsulting.com to register for this survey, or to discuss the PFR measures already installed at your home over the phone.