Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed as an accurate record.
The following actions were carried over:
ACTION: Emily to invite SWW to update on progress – potentially Mark Jacob. (Regarding CIG 27 Risks to public water supplies from reduced water availability (and shifting supply and demand balances).
Nick Paling advised that the water resources management plan is with the regulators in final draft. It is expected to be published later this year. There are challenges to balance the expectations from environmental regulators with the opportunities to raise revenue dictated by Ofwat. Nick added that from 2039, SWW has to plan for a 1 in 500 year drought. In some parts of Cornwall, the 2022 drought was considered a 1 in 200 year drought.
ACTION: Mark will speak to the Rural Payments Agency to ask if they have data to help with monitoring. (Regarding action NEB1 to promote soil management techniques to improve resilience).
Review of Risks CIG34 – 38
Five risks from the Infrastructure section of the regional Climate Adaptation Strategy were scheduled for review at today’s meeting. These are the risks with identification codes CIG34 – CIG38. [Every risk in the Strategy is scheduled for review once a year].
Tom mentioned that the forthcoming National Flood Risk Assessment 2 will share future flooding maps under climate change. This has not been done before. Tom will brief the group on this ahead of its publication.
Paul added that an update to the National Coastal Erosion Risk Mapping is currently undergoing an update and will be published later this year.
Links were shared in the chat regarding the Drought Risk and You project, led by the University of West England Bristol, which West Country Rivers Trust were involved in.
The meeting discussed the risks. No changes regarding the magnitude and likelihood of the risks were raised by the group.
Review of Actions
Four actions in the Action Plan (Appendix 6 of the Strategy) were reviewed at this meeting. Ahead of the meeting, Emily circulated a table that has collated local activity that is helping to implement each action. Comments on this were requested.
HBEA–1 – Develop a Climate Change awareness campaign to inform stakeholders, including the public, of the projected range of changes and their impacts alongside how we are adapting and what we can all do to respond.
Tom highlighted the challenge of achieving parity in understanding across different climate hazards or receptors. He mentioned a project proposal by Albert Chen at Exeter University, aiming to apply a multi-criteria analysis model, initially developed for flooding and coastal issues, to other climate receptors like drought and heat. This approach could potentially provide a more comprehensive understanding and data to support climate change communications.
Paul discussed the importance of consistent messaging in climate campaigns, expressing concern about mixed messaging due to different organizations working independently. He suggested a regional communications piece to unify messaging, emphasizing the need for collaboration to avoid conflicting information and to use resources more efficiently.
Emily highlighted that this group had prepared a calendar of messages that could be communicated as part of an holistic campaign, but we haven’t had the resource to translate that into a branded campaign with consistent assets across the region. We do have a brand via the website for the regional strategy. So we could do something together if we can find the resource. Paul, Tom and others endorsed this approach.
ACTION: All to keep abreast of opportunities to find funding to deliver a regional campaign.
Nick shared a link to the Environment Agency Flash Floods campaign video which Cornwall Community Flood Forum (CCFF) have been putting out on social media as a good example of community communications. Nick also suggested CCFF could be invited to the Climate Impacts Group.
HBEA-2 – Public authorities to continue to provide timely & localised information on climate change impacts to enable appropriate adaptation planning by all
Emily noted that there are good things happening across the region but this has an amber status because it’s not yet happening consistently.
Tom added that an issue hampering delivery with this is that some of the tools available to public bodies to delivery adaptation, such as the HM Treasury Green Book, makes it difficult to plan far enough ahead.
Tom shared a link to an example Flood Hub for the North West of England, the Environment Agency are developing one a one-stop shop for flooding and coast information in the South West.
HBEE–4 – Policymakers to engage with the public to ensure awareness and understanding of the predicted impacts of climate change around the coast generally, and on their local communities specifically – to co-produce knowledge and agree viable actions.
Paul said that the Shoreline Management Planning policies in some areas of Cornwall will be moving from Hold the Line to Managed Retreat from 2025. This will mean that the maintenance of some defences will stop. Coastal Change Management Areas (such as in Newquay) need Coastal Change Management Plans that are aligned with the Shoreline Management Plan, and these need to be built into Neighbourhood and Local Plans to provide a structured approach to adapting communities to coastal changes. Paul highlighted the challenge of planning for future adaptation without adequate funding.
Emily suggested the Group needs to consider how it can communicate this issue to government. Doug suggested that Mark Rice may have channels to communicate this with national government, or a number of the group sit on ADEPT groups. Tom Dauben agreed these were good channels to get messages through, but added that staff with insight into the technical delivery of schemes often don’t attend these forums, so their voice needs to be heard too.
HBEC–3 – Work with partners to develop the materials and training to support in the establishment and operation of local Community Resilience Groups (or similar existing groups) and the development of community adaptation plans.
No further commentary on this.
Plymouth’s Building Resilience in Communities (BRIC) project
The BRIC project is part of the Devon Resilience Innovation Project (DRIP). It engages communities in Plymouth about adapting to flood risk.
Liza highlighted some of the issues in communicating climate and flood risk e.g. the average reading age in the UK is 9. Interactive exhibits are best that enable people to get hands on with activities to understand the causes of flooding and the dangers of flood water etc.
The Climate Pioneer Street is working with 58 homes on one street to implement simple measures in their homes, such as turning the tap off when brushing teeth, not running a dishwasher or a washing machine during a rainstorm, adding flowerpots outside properties and installing water butts – anything to slow down the flow of water in the street. Flow monitors are installed to see what effect this is happening.
A booklet has been published – Slow the Flow – along with information leaflets about specific actions people to take in their gardens and homes.
The project is implementing the Asset Based Community Development model – finding out who and what the assets are in a community and working with those to build bespoke support projects that will work in those locations.
In-Person Meeting
Following-on from previous ideas, Emily had circulated a proposal for an in-person meeting. We ran out of time to consider this today.
ACTION: All to review the proposal for the next meeting.
