Experience and Role

The National Flood Forum is a British charity that was set up in Bewdley, Worcestershire, England, in 2002 by people at risk of flooding to provide support to those at risk. It has a huge experience of working with people in flooded and flood risk communities and developed methodologies and tools to support this. As an independent charity the National Flood Forum takes the time to listen to the challenges individuals and communities face. Their priority is to enable people to take control of their own flooding concerns by helping people to recover after they have been flooded, supporting and listening to communities to feel empowered to manage their flood risk, and by representing people at risk of flooding nationally and locally to ensure a community perspective.

The National Flood Forum helps to support the establishment of local Flood Action Groups, whose role is to engage with flood management authorities with the aim of raising their awareness of local concerns and of barriers to being better prepared for flooding, and to make local knowledge available.

The National Flood Forum supports an expanding network of local groups and speaks on their behalf with government and its agencies.

The National Flood Forum will make full use of its experience in establishing local resilience networks. It will lead a pilot exercise in Kent to establish new Flood Action Groups in coastal areas including vulnerable groups, and to establish a network of Flood Action Groups, which represents a new approach to accelerating scale-up. It will provide training to a community taking part in a pilot community-led interactive mapping exercise. Furthermore, they will play a unique role in disseminating the BRIC results throughout the English part of the FCE area and beyond.