Autumn 2024 Newsletter

In this newsletter we have updates about a range of fantastic resilience events across the autumn season. The biggest date for your diary is the 2024 Somerset Prepared Community Resilience Day. We have put together a practical and exciting programme that features ‘Flood Mary’, as the star attraction. The day also includes workshops on Emergency Planning, Community Watercourse Mapping, and Emergency Communications. There will be a wide range of stallholders covering topics from Mental Health to Road Safety and Neighbourhood Watch. You can find out more about booking your free place at the bottom of this newsletter.

Alongside this we have two Resilience Roadshow events remaining which build on the success of the first two held in July. Keep reading to find out more and access the links to further information.

If you have any queries about this or any of the other features in our newsletter, please get in touch at somersetprepared@somerset.gov.uk. We would also welcome submissions or suggestions for future topics.

Best wishes,

Somerset Emergency Planning, Response and Recovery team

& Somerset Prepared Partners

Engagement and Events Update

The Somerset Prepared team has been busy helping in the community with advice, support and practical guidance on a range of resilience issues. In recent months we have:

• Run Community Resilience Roadshow events in Shepton Mallet and Queen Camel

• Delivered workshops on Community Emergency Plans for Taunton, Shepton Mallet, and Minehead & Watchet LCNs

• Attended Stoke St Gregory Envirofair

• Participated in an EVAG property flood resilience equipment demonstration day

• Attended various Parish Council and community meetings by invitation

We have two remaining Resilience Roadshows as follows:

Monday 9th September – Mark Village Hall, Vole Road, TA4 9NY

Monday 7th October – EMN Community Hall, Monksilver, TA4 4JE

Each event will offer Flood Warden support and guidance in the morning, 10.30am-12.30pm, followed by an afternoon of community resilience support from 1-3pm. There will be both 1:1 sessions and workshops from partners such as Somerset Rivers Authority, Somerset Council, the Environment Agency, Avon and Somerset Police and EVAG.

After these two events we have our annual Community Resilience Day, which will be on 6th November 2024 9.45am – 4pm, Bridgwater & Albion Rugby Football Club, Bath Road, Bridgwater, TA6 4TZ. Parish, Town and City Council and Community Group representatives are invited to attend this resilience and emergency planning-focused event. The day features Mary Long-Dhonau OBE, known as ‘Flood Mary’, along with her Floodmobile. There will also be a range of workshops, information sessions and equipment demonstrations. Presentations and interactive workshops will cover a range of topics on emergency resilience. You will leave armed with knowledge and practical information on preparing your community for all kinds of emergencies.

There will also be opportunities for networking and a complimentary lunch will be provided. Book your place here: Somerset Prepared Community Resilience Day Eventbrite

The winners of the individual and group Community Resilience Awards will be announced during the day. If you know of a person or group who has gone above and beyond to prepare their community for emergencies, please nominate them here: Somerset Prepared Community Resilience Award 2024 – Nomination Form (office.com).

Somerset Prepared Roadshow at Queen Camel

Next Generation Flood Resilience

Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) has teamed up with Somerset Council Education experts to devise some lively sessions on flooding and flood safety for Somerset primary schools. We have piloted them in in several schools across the county and had some great feedback. If you would like us to visit a school in your community, please fill out this form.

Planning Ahead

Safety in your community

Make autumn the time that you check your Emergency Community Contacts and Places of Safety details. If you need to amend the data, or want to check what information is held in the database please email somersetprepared@somerset.gov.uk putting the name of your community and the scheme you are querying in the subject line.

You can read about these two important schemes here. Places of Safety and Somerset Emergency Community Contacts. Add them to your Community Emergency Plan so that you have the people and the places you need at the ready in the event of an emergency.

EVAG Flood Resilience Programme

Somerset Prepared has teamed up with Rotary and Inner Wheel, who have formed a specialised registered charity – EVAG – one of whose missions is to provide essential items to reduce the effect of or protect against household flooding. Rotary – EVAG – has been busy across the summer attending local meetings and walk-in sessions in areas prone flooding.

Their objective is to find and list households which have been flooded and are threatened with future flooding so that flood resilience kit can be issued. A degree of protection and water diversion can be achieved to protect against floods up to approx. 2 feet deep – especially flash floods.

The EVAG team are always looking to help more communities, and to improve their offer. To this end they recently tested out some new equipment at a training day. Attendees were able to try out a range of flood protection equipment, from barriers to hydrosnakes and flood sacks. On this day rain actually helped play – the weather was pretty awful – but it gave the items the chance of a true test in real-life conditions. The images below just some of the items tested for the EVAG kit.

Interested parties should contact Somerset Prepared or David Welch: david303welch@btinternet.com

Testing flood resilience equipment

Business Continuity

The global IT outage on the 18th of July saw businesses of all sizes around the world struggle to maintain their normal operations after losing access to their cyber systems. The outage resulted in worldwide travel disruption with delayed flights and rail travel, forced broadcasters offline and more locally affected our GP surgeries. As well as highlighting the reliance many organisations have on technology, the IT outage also showed the importance of having effective business continuity strategies. The organisations with effective business continuity plans were able to react more quickly to the event to find alternative ways of working and minimise disruption to both their staff and customers.

To help support you with your business continuity management, we have put together some new resources, including:

• A business continuity plan template to get you started on your business continuity arrangements.

• A Frequently Asked Questions document to answer some of your most common queries.

• A set of “exercise in a box” scenarios to test the effectiveness of your plans.

• A checklist to help you review and update your business continuity plans.

All of these resources, as well as advice on business continuity can be accessed on the Somerset Prepared website https://www.somersetprepared.org.uk/get-prepared/businesses/

Coming soon....

We are also starting work on a collaborative project offering Emergency Plan advice and information for farmers. Watch this space for more information.

Nominate a person or group for our Community Resilience Award!

Do you know a someone or a group who has gone above and beyond to promote community resilience in Somerset? Why not nominate them for our Somerset Prepared Community Resilience award?

Beavers bring natural resilience to Somerset

Wild beavers are back in Somerset! Re-learning to live alongside them will bring a lot of benefits, but we may also need to make some management changes.

In 2022, Somerset Wildlife Trust was commissioned by the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group with funding from the Somerset Rivers Authority to produce a beaver management strategy for the county. The aim is to ensure local people can capitalise on all the opportunities renewed co-existence with beavers can bring, for example, natural flood management, drought resilience, climate adaptation strategies, nature recovery, and business diversification. It should also ensure systems and resources are available that empower local communities to mitigate any potential challenges they might face, including from increased flood risk, burrowing activity, and foraging from crops. With input from over 30 organisations, computer modelling, desk-based research, and public consultations, a draft strategy has been created.

We now need your input. It doesn't matter if you're a beaver expert or just beaver curious – your feedback is still valuable! Please join one of the upcoming public consultation events or take part in the online survey. Details of how to participate are on Somerset Wildlife Trust’s Beaver Management Strategy webpage.

This could be the first completed beaver management strategy in England since beavers were made a legally protected species in 2022. Join us in making history and shaping the future by sharing your thoughts.

Trees and resilience - the threats of a changing climate

We are currently in a geological epoch knows as the Anthropocene. This dates from about 1950 and is a recognition of the impact that humans have had on every corner of the globe including its eco-systems and climate.

In the UK weather predictions suggest a warmer climate, prolonged summer droughts and wetter winters. The direct effect of this is likely to be detrimental to species such as beech, birch and our native oak which due to their rooting structures cannot tolerate drought or have a low resilience to threats such as winter flooding.

When trees are stressed they become susceptible to pathogens such as phytophthora which has caused massive damage to larch and cypress, Dophistroma needle blight which damages Scots pine, spruce bark beetle and acute oak decline. It is not just climate that is exacerbating the threats of pests but also the massive movement of biological products across the globe. An obvious example of this is ash die back caused by a fungus believed to have been introduced to our shores from Asia. It was first confirmed in 2012 and in just over a decade has caused the massive damage to our ash trees that we witness on a daily basis.

Although the changing climate will alter the face of our woodlands, they may favour certain species that thrive in warmer conditions. Forecasting has demonstrated that in the next 25 years our temperatures will be similar to those currently experiences in the Mediterranean. In these areas the forester will be familiar with sweet chestnut, holm oak, sycamore, robinia, strawberry tree and tulip tree.

Woodland purists may throw their hands up in horror at the thought of introducing these non-native trees to our landscape. However, there are advantages, one of which is they are more likely to prosper than some of our more widely recognised natives.

Our canopy cover at 13% in the UK is one of the lowest in Europe and Somerset stands at just 8%. Both the Somerset Tree Strategy (2023) and the England Tree Action Plan (2021-4) emphasise the need to dramatically increase this cover but there is no point in planting species that may not survive.

What can we do? When planning a woodland give consideration to planting up to 25% of non-native species. An excellent, free tool is the Ecological Site Classification produced by Forest Research. You input the location of your project and ESC will provide a detailed list of recommended species to match the predicted climate of the future.

When using native species, source a local nursery that produces stock from local seeds. When buying your trees be sure they have the correct APHA passport. This will ensure traceability and compliancy with plant health regulations.

Good luck. Let’s embrace the change.

James Chapman. Somerset Tree Strategist

Take 3 actions to help

Keeping it simple, here are three things you can do to make a difference for your community:

• Celebrate the unsung heroes that have made a difference to local resilience and emergency preparedness by nominating them for the Somerset Prepared Community Resilience Awards.

• Book your place at the Somerset Prepared Community Resilience Day here

• Take part in the Somerset Beaver Management Strategy consultation here

Have your say - We would love your feedback!

Have your say on what you'd like to see in these newsletters and the website. We are always looking for collaboration and communities, projects or events to highlight so please contact us and let us know.

Featured images

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