The Environment Agency and emergency services are teaming up to test ways to protect Salisbury from flooding. Exercise Touchpaper will last three days and is led by the Environment Agency, who will supply flood barriers, about 50 staff and all the necessary equipment for a pump.
People living in Dorset, Salisbury Plain and Wiltshire South Downs are urged to check their groundwater flood risk and sign up for alerts.
Prepare Act Survive - Those are the simple but stark words behind our flood action campaign designed to help keep people safe from flooding.
Over 20,000 properties across Wiltshire & Swindon are at risk of flooding either from rivers, surface water or groundwater. Nationally more than 20% of all homes are at flood risk.
Intense bouts of flooding are set to become more frequent, the Environment Agency has warned today (Friday 16 February).
The warning follows a pattern of severe flooding over the past 10 years linked to an increase in extreme weather events as the country’s climate changes. Met Office records show that since 1910 there have been 17 record breaking rainfall months or seasons – with 9 of them since 2000. As intense storms are becoming more frequent, sea levels are also rising because of climate change.
1 in 6 properties in England is at risk of flooding and this is only going to increase with a changing climate. Many people think that flooding will never happen to them. The fact is – it could! We experienced widespread flooding across Wiltshire during the Winter of 2013/14.
The Environment Agency leads work to protect communities from flooding and, locally through the LRF, it leads our Severe Weather Sub-Group which coordinates the activities of local agencies to prepare for a flooding event.
