The Leader also urges people to find out how they can become part of the council’s coordinated local flood response.
The Leader’s comments coincide with the UK’s annual ‘Flood Action Week’, an Environment Agency (EA) initiative to raise awareness of increased flood risk caused by a changing climate. Record-breaking rainfall in Central Bedfordshire at the end of September led to the most sustained and widespread flooding in living memory, and the reality is that these events are likely to become more common.
Flood response in Central Bedfordshire is coordinated by the council, working in partnership with the Bedfordshire Local Resilience Forum (BLRF) which provides a strategic steer to councils, the emergency services and other partners involved in emergency planning, preparation and response.
A key component of the BLRF’s response is the army of local volunteers organised through the Bedfordshire Local Emergency Volunteers Executive Committee (BLEVEC), including Beds & Cambs 4x4 Response, Midshires Search & Rescue, SERVE ON, and AMYA UK who helped deliver leaflets and offered to help with the clean-up operation. Other volunteers are part of the council-coordinated Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) which are vital in providing local-level information and communication in an emergency.
Leader of Central Bedfordshire Council, Councillor Adam Zerny, said:
Council officers have worked tirelessly, and continue to do so, since the latest record-breaking rainfall brought flooding to many parts of Central Bedfordshire – from setting up and running an emergency hotline to supporting the most vulnerable in our communities.
The emergency services have had a pivotal role too, along with partners like the Environment Agency and National Highways who had to deal with the unprecedented flooding of the A421.
But I want to give special mention to the work of BLEVEC volunteers who were out there in difficult conditions, including overnight, helping people whose homes and businesses had been flooded, or operating drones to allow the BLRF to get footage of the flooding in real time.
I also want to thank everyone involved in the CERTs, which we rely on for that all-important local knowledge. The CERTs are a big part of our planned response to local emergencies, ensuring there is a two-way flow of communication with affected areas and supporting communities with flood kits which we provide.
During the flooding I went out to meet people and see first-hand how it affected their communities. For those who have never experienced flooding of their homes or businesses, it’s hard to understand just how devastating it can be – not just in terms of material possessions, but also the emotional and mental impact it has.
We saw countless examples of people stepping up to help others at a time of crisis, and I’m immensely proud of the community spirit shown across more than 30 areas in Central Bedfordshire that experienced flooding.
If you aren’t already aware of how you can become part of our coordinated response to major incidents through the BLEVEC and CERTs, now is a good time to find out what they do and how they work with us. You can find out more on the flooding pages of our website.
Our website also has a lot of information on what to do if you’ve been flooded, and you can complete the Environment Agency’s survey which will be used to help understand the full picture of events in recent weeks.
The Environment Agency advise that the best way to protect yourself from flooding is early preparation and knowing what to do in advance. Some of the actions people can take to reduce the dangers are:
- check your long-term flood risk. You can use this free service to find out the long-term flood risk for an area in England, the possible causes of flooding, and how to manage flood risk
- sign up for flood warnings by phone, text or email
- taking steps to protect yourself from future flooding – including storing important documents in a secure, waterproof location, taking rugs and small furniture upstairs, checking how to turn off your electricity and water, preparing a flood kit
