Major flood response exercise

Environment Agency teams across England are training with new temporary flood barriers, pumps, vehicles, and drones as part of Exercise Certus, which reaches its climax today (Wednesday 12 October).

The exercise, which involves around 1,000 staff, is designed to test that the Environment Agency is ready to respond more rapidly and flexibly to future flooding following the Government’s National Flood Resilience Review (NFRR).

As well as new technology the Environment Agency has awarded a 1-year contract to Stobart Group to store, track, and transport its 40 kilometres of temporary barriers and other mobile equipment. The contract will include use of the Stobart Group’s network of resilience centres, distribution centres and extensive fleet of over 3,000 trucks.

Stobart Group will be working with the Environment Agency to provide a 24/7 logistics support service throughout the year assisting the Environment Agency before, during, and after flooding.

The Environment Agency has also reached a key ‘winter ready’ milestone with all those communities affected by flooding last winter now having the same level of flood protection they had before winter 2015/16.

This is a result of a £65m programme across the north of England, involving 20,000 inspections and around 650 repair projects, to restore flood defences or, as in the case of the Foss Barrier, significantly upgrade them.

Read the full article on the gov.uk website