What do you know about Property Flood Resilience – Have we made a difference?

People who live and work in Yorkshire and Chesterfield are being asked to take part in a survey to find out their views on property flood resilience (PFR).

We are carrying out the survey as part of the evaluation of the Yorkshire Property Flood Resilience (PFR) Pathfinder – one of three national projects commissioned by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and supported by the Environment Agency. The Yorkshire pathfinder project called Yorkshire Flood Resilience has been led by the City of York Council, in partnership with JBA Consulting, iCASP and many other organisations, for the past 18 months.

Yorkshire has one of the highest levels of flood risk in the UK from all sources of flooding and it is essential people take action themselves to increase the resilience of their homes and businesses.

The aim of the project has been to increase the understanding and uptake of property flood resilience in the region.

Findings from the evaluation will be used to discover what difference the project has made. Useful lessons and insights will be shared with the government, local authorities across the country and a host of other partners to help shape future work aimed at encouraging people to install property flood resilience measures.

Shelley Evans, iCASP Impact Translation Fellow and Principal Flood Resilience Emergency Planner for JBA Consulting and Dr Ben Rabb, iCASP Impact Translation Fellow are monitoring and evaluating the impact of change in peoples’ perception, attitude and behaviour towards property flood resilience measures.

Shelley said: “This survey will help us understand if the project has made a difference and how. We want to capture the opinions of a wide variety of people and organisations – there are no right or wrong answers.”

The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete.

Alongside residents and business owners, we’d like flood groups, landlords and community groups to take part. Also we’d like to hear from

property, trade and building suppliers including developers and maintenance contractors

financial advisers, insurance companies, investors and mortagage lenders

Flood Risk Management Authorities including the Environment Agency, water companies and local authorities.

Since the Yorkshire Flood Resilience project was set up in 2019, a wealth of information, tools and resources has been created aimed at everyone from home and business owners to private landlords to help people understand what property flood resilience is, how it works and what the benefits are. Between December 2020 and September 2021.

Among the resources created are a website featuring real life case studies of home and business owners across Yorkshire, a fun and educational game for children, downloadable information packs, a series of online training modules, animations explaining what property flood resilience is in simple terms

The project also provided funding towards the cost of developing the Living With Water Community Hub at Wilverforce College in Hull – a regional centre where people can learn more about PFR and view demonstration models.