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Floods minister announces which projects around the country have been allocated funding for natural flood defences, part of the government’s drive to roll out innovative techniques to reduce flood risk.

New allocations of flood management funding will allow homes, businesses and communities around the country to benefit from increased flood protection, Floods Minister Thérèse Coffey announced recently.

34 community led projects have been named as winners of a £1m government funded competition, the first of its kind, and will now be able to realise their innovative plans to use landscape features such as ponds, banks, meanders, channels, and trees to store, drain or slow flood water.

24 other catchment scale projects have also been allocated funding to develop larger scale projects which will benefit wider areas; with Cumbria, Greater Manchester Merseyside and Cheshire and Wolsingham all receiving over £1m of funding.

Environment minister Thérèse Coffey said:

This funding will help more than 50 projects around the country take full advantage of innovative natural flood management measures. Flood defence technology and engineering is better than ever and by using a mix of natural and concrete defences, we can provide the best flood protection for individual areas.

Methods such as restoring floodplains and planting trees will not only help protect families, homes and businesses from flooding, they will also bring environmental benefits to the wider area and all the people who live in these many communities.

Minister Coffey announced the successful allocations in Sutton and Roxwell, where she visited two of the schemes which will receive funding.

Following flooding in Roxwell last year the community bid for funding to improve land and ditch management and reduce the risk of the local brook overtopping again. This project has been allocated £50,000 so the community can work with local landowners to help slow the flow of water down to the brook.

Sutton’s sustainable drainage in schools project will receive £50,000 to improve the town’s natural flood defences. This scheme will be run across seven of Sutton’s schools, providing improved flood protection to over 100 properties.

Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency, said:

Natural flood management is an important part of our approach, alongside traditional flood defences and helping homeowners to improve their own property resilience. There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to flooding and this scheme is a fantastic example of how we can use a variety of measures that work together to reduce flood risk.

These allocations come from the £15 million of natural flood management funding which was announced in March, following the Autumn statement.

Details of the allocations are available here.