Eye on Calderdale's Story
The fund enables landowners and farmers to undertake land and water management to build up Calderdale's resilience to heavy rainfall events. It was set up to achieve the objectives from the Calderdale Flood Action Plan. Specifically, to understand the relationship between catchment management and flooding, promote delivery of Natural Flood Management (NFM) techniques which can contribute to flood mitigation and alleviation and deliver engagement of catchment landowners and land managers to contribute to NFM solutions. NFM cannot completely prevent our area from flooding in the future, but it can reduce the frequency and severity of flood events, as well as provide additional environmental benefits.
The Grant Scheme has so far created 25,000+ m3 of attenuation, 300+ leaky dams and planted 11,000 trees. The Council are also directly delivering NFM projects elsewhere including installing heather bunds and blocking channels to retain water on the moorland, delivering flood mitigation and enhanced wildlife habitats. As well as working with local partners such as 'Slow the Flow' and 'Treesponsibility'.
Useful Learnings from Eye on Calderdale
There has been a great response from landowners keen to implement natural flood management upon their land. The grant scheme was designed with the assistance of local landowners to ensure their needs were met.
Here are a few tips on how to deliver a successful project:
- Build in engagement time and face-to-face meetings to explain what NFM is and how the landowners can benefit.
- Build in support for landowners at every stage, for starters, landowners may need support with IT in terms of application forms, maps etc. Consider partnering with third-sector organisations to share this workload.
- If funding interventions such as attenuation basins ensure adequate budget to cover a qualified designer to ensure effective and safe interventions.
-Fund interpretation boards, to spread the message, and perhaps encourage neighbours to get involved.
- Fund maintenance payments to ensure the intervention is fit for purpose in the future.
Eye on Calderdale's Metrics
Number of leaky dams, trees planted and metres cubed of attenuation.
Number of landowner applications.
Number of grants awarded.
