In 2015, Storm Eva resulted in devastating floods across Leeds and its surrounding areas. Apart from the human misery, these floods were estimated to cost the regional economy at least £500million. Something needed to be done to stop similar events in the future, especially as global warming is predicted to lead to more frequent, and worse, events of this type.
We have been working with Leeds Council, the Environment Agency, The Rivers Trust, and others to create a way to fund and deliver significant improvements to flood protection and catchment quality by the use of Natural Flood Management approaches. This has led to the formation of an innovative company, The Aire Resilience Company, which will broker finance between those property owners in Leeds who value a higher level of flood protection, and landowners in the catchment who will let us install NFM measures such as leaky dams, trees, hedgerows etc. in order to slow/reduce the flow during extreme floods.
Click on the blue button below to learn more about how the Aire Resilience Company will complement and enhance the Leeds Flood Alleviation Scheme (Leeds FAS) to help prevent this happening in the future.