In 2015, Defra brought together key business interests in a ‘Roundtable’ and challenged to bring about significant change in flood resilience. This resulted in the Property Flood Resilience Action Plan, which sets a path for addressing the major barriers to people being able to better prepare their homes and businesses for future floods.
The Roundtable, made up of different task groups, and resulting Action Plan seeks to better equip households and businesses to minimise the physical and emotional impact of flooding on their lives. It aims to do so by tapping into the unique skills, experiences and opportunities that the business world has to offer.
Improving standards, certification and skills
The task group for standards, certification and skills considered the lack of consistent standards for products and certification related to properties, including newbuild, existing properties and materials. It also examined the skills needed by surveyors, contractors and other professionals.
The recommendations included the following:
- Develop appropriate training programmes for surveyors and installers of flood resistance and resilience in property.
- Develop training for insurers and loss adjusters on resilient repair, technologies and working with clients to achieve appropriate solutions.
- Develop the approach to certification of building materials, components and products.
- Promote use of existing standards, in particular, ensuring that PAS1188 products are referenced in procurement documents and that BS85500 is adopted by house builders and commercial builders in areas at risk of flooding.
Resilience16 workshop
This workshop, which will be held as part of the Resilience16 conference on 1 November, will be facilitated by the BRE Centre for Resilience. It will critically examine the recommendations and discuss ways in which they can be taken forward. It will also address how gaps can be filled and which parties need to be involved in the discussions.
The workshop will encourage delegate participation in questioning an expert panel including the following:
- Dr Stephen Garvin (BRE)
- Steve McKeown (Whitehouse Construction)
- Alastair Moseley (CIWEM)
- Alan Cripps (RICS)
- Alan Thornley (British Insurance Brokers Association)
Members of the Roundtable will be speaking at Resilience16. This highly interactive conference, supported by case studies and insights from stakeholders, will examine the recommendations contained in the report, around issues such as funding, standards, skills and awareness. It will provide delegates with the opportunity to discuss how industry can best implement the recommendations.
This article was initially published on Building4Change website.