Chris UttleyProject Officer

Stroud Rural Sustainable Drainage Project. Three years of Natural Flood Management in the

Stroud Valleys

Flooding in Stroud July 2007

What is the Stroud model of Natural Flood Management?

Community inspired, Community involvedPartners engagedCommunity built

What does community involvement look like? Flood groups in initial project

development. Flood groups on interview

panel for choosing project Officer.

Regular evening meetings with Flood groups.

Engagement with Parish Councils before works Commence.

Flood groups engage landowners in project, visit work sites and volunteer in work parties.

Honesty, engagement & commitment

What does working in a proper partnership look like?

Early & open working with partners. Compromise on timing & extent of work Helping partners to achieve their

objectives Trusting partners to deliver Make use of partners expertise

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What is the Stroud model of Natural Flood Management?

A local solution, using local labour, local materials and local expertise

What does community delivery look like?

Full involvement of land owners in project delivery if they want.

Using local contractors, building capacity.

Working with local volunteers.

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What is the Stroud model of Natural Flood Management?

Large number of small interventions dispersed around catchment, low risk, low cost.

La

What have we built and done?

280+ Interventions170 Large Woody Debris leaky dams

installed directly in 18km of stream21% of the Stroud Frome catchment

discharges through NFM features.

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Additional outputs & benefits

>150 days volunteer time2 Films to publicise the projectCase study notes, signage & conferencec£250k of external funding invested in Stroud

District to date. (£500k by end of project)Biodiversity benefits likely to be significant – > deadwood, creating wetter habitats, slowing silt, Reducing spates, better invert’ & fish habitat.

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Lessons Learned from Stroud1. Keep it local & community lead2. Build capacity in landowners, local contractors &

volunteer groups 3. Build small and many rather than few and large.4. Start as upstream as possible5. Don’t wait for perfect data before building. Focus on

low risk, certain wins to gain confidence.6. Don’t focus on volumes, heights and measurements.

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