A plan is currently in the works to prevent and alleviate flooding incidents across the county through government funding.
This follows a successful bid by Buckinghamshire Council and its partners for a multi-million-pound fund for a six-year project called ‘GRACE’ (Groundwater Resilience & Community Engagements).
The aim help is to help and warn residents of potential incidents, caused by groundwater flooding.
The floods last Christmas in Bucks
Would recommend you don’t drive through flood waters. pic.twitter.com/sc3BfjedMD
— Warren Whyte (@WarrenWhyteUK) December 24, 2020
This comes after large parts of the county were badly impacted by flooding at the end of last year/start of this year.
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One of the worst-hit areas was in Buckingham, which saw numerous residents call the emergency services due to excessive flooding on Christmas Eve.
This was caused by the River Great Ouse in the town overflowing and spilling into the streets.
Ian Thompson, Buckinghamshire Council’s Corporate Director for Planning, Growth, and Sustainability said: “We’ve seen in these last few months just how terrible the impact of flooding can be and we seize every opportunity we can to find ways of protecting our communities from flooding, whatever the cause.
"Because the Chilterns are chalk, the area is more prone to groundwater flooding.
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"This is a long-term scheme which tackles groundwater flooding in the Chilterns from a variety of angles, together all aimed at ultimately building resilience to lessen the impact, through stopping flooding in the first place, and ensuring effective warning systems are in place when and where there is a risk.”
Buckinghamshire was badly impacted
Tingewick Road and Fishers Field. Inaccessible currently unless you have waders. Just seen @AnglianWater on site so hopefully assessing the situation. pic.twitter.com/6m2GUQa9FH
— Warren Whyte (@WarrenWhyteUK) December 24, 2020
One of the features is a new app, which will warn local communities about flood risks and which areas are in danger of flooding.
Buckinghamshire Council is also working on the ‘GRACE’ project with numerous partners across the Chilterns and Berkshire Downs areas, including other councils, the Open University, and several local flood groups.
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The GRACE project has several innovative strings to it, including:
• Partnerships with local communities
• Investigating and developing responses to the mental health impacts of flooding
• Using new highways gulley sensors for monitoring
• New modelling and mapping of groundwater flood risk areas
• Developing a new groundwater flood alert system
• Researching and improving flood resilience measures in properties
• Identifying and trialling Natural Flood Management measures to reduce groundwater flooding
Areas within the county such as Aylesbury, Milton Keynes, Buckingham, Marlow and Stony Stratford were some of the worst-hit when the floods struck at the end of 2020/start of 2021.
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