Calls for National Flood Resilience Centre ahead of 2020 Budget

Leaders have rallied behind plans for a multi-million pound National Flood Resilience Centre in the Humber region.

Ark, a project led by the University of Hull and Humberside Fire & Rescue Service, will be the first centre of its kind, anywhere in the world.

Located in North Lincolnshire, Ark will provide the emergency services and responders with a controlled environment for simulated training in both urban and rural flood events, and includes a full-scale 120-metre-long street and a water rapids course.

The facility will also be a base for world-leading research and innovation, focused on enhancing business, societal and community resilience to flooding.

It will act as a catalyst for the future co-location of other leading flood innovation and research focused on addressing this global challenge.

A joint bid has been submitted for Ark by the University of Hull and Humberside Fire & Rescue Service, backed by North Lincolnshire Council.

Professor Dan Parsons, director of the Energy and Environment Institute at the University of Hull, said: “The impacts of climate change are being seen right now.

“The devastating impact of storms Ciara and Dennis over recent weeks highlight the need for greater understanding, and more effective responses and recovery to severe flood events.

“Ark will prove to be a game-changer in how we tackle and recover from these events, which are only going to get worse as we suffer the consequences of climate change.

“It is about becoming more resilient to flooding as a society. We need to learn to get wet better and Ark will help us do that.”

He added that if successful, Ark would underline the university’s position as a leader in research tackling the impacts of climate change and would place the UK at the forefront of global efforts to tackle the devastating effects of flooding on communities.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has estimated around 20% of the world’s population will be at risk of flooding by 2050 due to climate change.

In the UK alone, 5.2 million homes and businesses are already at risk.

Ark will support a suite of education programmes, including a new Masters programme in Flood Risk Management at the university from September 2020.

Andrew Percy, MP for Brigg, Goole and the Isle of Axholme, raised the importance of securing funding for Ark with the new Secretary of State for DEFRA, George Eustice, in the House of Commons.

Prcy said: “My constituency is largely on land recovered by Dutch engineers and is therefore probably the most flood-prone constituency in the country.

“I urge the Secretary of State, given the particular risk that we have in my area, to look very closely at the proposal for a national flood resilience centre in Scunthorpe.

“The council has done its part in providing the land. The University of Hull and the Humberside fire service are providing funding.

“We need the Government to step up and provide funding so that we have a proper national centre.”

North Lincolnshire Council leader, Rob Waltham, said: “Local residents will remember the devastating flooding of December 2013 and this research facility will help to ensure communities and business can be better prepared when flooding occurs.

“This would be a significant investment in Scunthorpe and North Lincolnshire and I am confident an international research centre such as this will bring a whole sector of supply industries that could also see hundreds of well-paid jobs too.”

Steve Topham, director of service support at Humberside Fire and Rescue Service, said: “We know from experience just how essential it is to provide an effective emergency response in the event of flooding.

“The Ark will give fire and rescue services across the country, together with all the other responding agencies, a facility where we can prepare in a much more realistic way, as well as having access to a wealth of research and innovation power.”

Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
Close