FloodSax alternative sandbags protecting a home from flooding

£3m to teach people how to protect their homes from the misery of flooding

The Government has given £3m to projects that help people protect their homes from flooding.

The cash injection has been pledged to the schemes in Yorkshire, central England and Devon and Cornwall to receive up to £700,000 each. The money will be used for research into the best ways to protect homes and businesses from flooding.

The money will be used to set up research projects, demonstrations and advice which will help people to discover how installing anti-flood measures in their homes can massively reduce the potentially horrendous impact of flooding.

A report by the Public Sector Executive’s online news website says: “This can include installing flood doors, hard floors and ensuring that electrics are raised off ground level around the home. The measures can significantly reduce the amount of time people are out of their home following a flood.”

Lessons learned from these pilot projects will be shared nationwide.

One of the projects to benefit from the Government cash is the Oxford-Cambridge Pathfinder, led by Northamptonshire County Council, which is involved in providing one million high-quality homes across a wide area, including neighbouring counties, by 2050. Ten communities will be benefit from the project, ensuring resources to promote and install property flood resilience are prioritised in the areas most vulnerable to the impacts of flooding.  

The Yorkshire Future Flood Resilience Pathfinder project, delivered by City of York Council, will spread the word that people need to do more to protect their properties from flooding and provide a major training programme. 

The South West Partnership project, led by Cornwall County Council, will focus on local innovation to enhance the future take-up of property flood resilience measures. As well as establishing a demonstration hub and web portal it will seek to simplify and streamline processes, increasing the flood resilience of communities across Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. 

Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency, said: “Our experience shows that making these small changes in the home can make a huge difference to people’s lives when flooding takes place.”

Building greater resilience into our homes, businesses and infrastructure forms one of the core themes of the Environment Agency’s Draft Flood and Coastal Risk Management Strategy, looking at to prepare for increased climate risk over the next 100 years.

The Government is currently investing a £2.6 billion to better protect 300,000 homes and thousands of business from flooding and coastal erosion between 2015-2021. 

Homeowners and businesses often don’t realise that councils have no responsibility to provide sandbags if flooding is expected. They must protect themselves and one way to do this is to have FloodSax alternative sandbags which are space-saving to store and easy to deploy. It means you have peace of mind and are ready for action 24/7 to prevent a flood.

Once FloodSax come into contact with water they inflate to weigh 20kg (44lbs) which makes them more effective than traditional sandbags at keeping floodwater out.

More than 2.5 million have now been sold worldwide.