Repair and Renew Event Programme
(includes information on Mitigation Funding, Property Level Protection and Community Emergency Plan)
The Repair and Renew Grant is available to help flooded homes and businesses with the cost of installing flood protection to your home or business to make you more flood resilient and resistant.
The application form can be downloaded, printed and completed to be sent by post (phone 01636 650000), or completed online and sent by email. Visit here for the form. Detailed guidance can be found here. This scheme is administered by Newark and Sherwood District Council.
You can apply retrospectively providing the criteria are met.
There will be a deadline for applications – to be advised
Visit our Resources page for links to useful websites and further information on making your home more flood resilient/resistant.
When selecting which measures you intend to install, please read the guidance notes and we strongly advise that you consider information available on reference websites such as http://www.bluepages.org.uk/. The guidance will help you select the appropriate resilience/ resistance measures for the nature of flooding in your area – not all of the identified measures may be appropriate and may make limited difference to protecting or minimising the damage to your premises
Inspections may take place at a later date to ensure any products bought under these grants are purchased and installed correctly. Failure to do so may lead to prosecution.
We suggest you do thorough research, possibly employ an independent surveyor (costs up to £500 can be reimbursed within the Repair and Renew £5K grant), talk to others who have had protection fitted already – and if you possibly can, come along on 17th January.
We appreciate Robert Jenrick’s determination to support our community and to have been successful in his campaign to extend the criteria date for the Repair and Renew Grant. The cut-off date of December 2013 excluded the flooding in Southwell and other communities in Notts.
He among top politicians – David Cameron, George Osborne – pledged during his election campaign last May to support our community and consider extending the deadline for this grant that Somerset Levels for example, had received.
We are delighted that he has lived up to his promises and residents affected by flooding will welcome the opportunity to provide Property Level Protection for their home. Around 200 homes were affected by flooding in July 2013, many more were threatened and some of those were also affected in 2007 and at other times of heavy rainfall.
However, we mustn’t lose sight of the bigger Southwell Flood Mitigation Plan to provide mitigation measures to protect the whole town and long-term peace of mind.
Most PLP will still require intervention to actually install in the event of a potential flood situation, so a robust Warden scheme would be needed to ensure houses are protected even if people are absent at the time of an alert.
We understand it will not affect the cost-benefit formula for our funding bid for mitigation for which we have been campaigning to secure partnership funding in addition to Government Grant-in-Aid of £720 which was confirmed in the Autumn Statement.
Southwell Town Council has so far ring-fenced £40K through the precept and is soon to vote on future contributions. Local fundraising has so far raised £16K towards the target of £125K and many volunteer hours under the umbrella of Southwell Flood Forum have supported watercourse clearance, Flood Warden training and the mitigation campaign.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Liz Truss, announced on Thursday 27th November, that the Repair and Renew Grant offered to flood victims in the south last winter, would be extended to other areas of the country which had been affected from April 2013. More than £2m has been set aside to help homeowners with the cost of installing flood protection to their homes and businesses in our area.
This is great news and as Robert Jordan, Chair says, “Without doubt, this is due to Southwell Flood Forum keeping up the pressure at the highest level. Once the scheme is open, I urge everyone who has already installed flood protection, and everyone who is still thinking of doing so, to get their applications in early.”
You may remember members of the Forum lobbied Robert Jenrick, David Cameron and George Osborne about this when they visited Newark in the run-up to the Newark by-election in May this year.
We are making enquiries about how this scheme will be administered, so once more information is released within the next few weeks, watch out in the local press and we will also circulate further details.
We are particularly pleased that the Repair and Renew Grants will not affect the £1.8m bid for Government Grant in Aid for the Southwell Flood Mitigation Plan for town-wide measures to reduce our flood risk.
- Nottingham Post story here
- BBC News story here
- Newark Advertiser story here
- ITV story here
- Bramley article here
