Newsletter #11 (December 2025)

Louis Ramirez
1 day ago
4 min read

For the busy reader:

SUMMARY:

This newsletter showcases all the little successes of 2025 and looks back at our first year as Flooded People UK.
At the bottom, you have a full list of our recent media work!

CALL TO ACTION:

We’ve reached out to people asking why they like this newsletter. So now we have a clearer purpose, with it written out in our signup page.
For flooded people, this newsletter summarizes the month and showcases their work and others.
For non-flooded people, this newsletter gives access to the best experts on flooding: those who have been through it. It will have tips and tricks and report on what flooded people are up to.
For professionals, this is a way to keep up with an exciting advocacy and mutual aid project in your space and to ask us questions.
(If you want to help, invite 10 people to join by sharing THIS LINK!)

A first year in review:

Dear all,

If I’d tried to write this newsletter a year ago, there wouldn’t have been much to say. We had no newsletter, no group, no gatherings, no site visits, no media presence, etc. We were just about workshopping the name “Flooded People UK.”

We’ve enjoyed quite a few little successes since then, and this newsletter is for celebrating them. With all of us getting out of holiday slumber (I’m on my second coffee and it’s 10:16), I’m hoping it can be a little motivator.

People from different walks of life, with different political and social opinions, from different parts of the country, have come together both online and offline, to take care of one another. The starting basis of unity is the shared trauma of flooding.

But from this original starting place, we have taken our first baby steps towards a more positive unity, by meeting, discussing, listening, and gathering in Birmingham. This new unity will be about our shared analysis, hopes and projects for improving things.

This little community we have formed has been finding a voice for itself, with flooded people from South Wales, Shropshire, and Nottinghamshire in particular taking control of telling their own story in the media. This is important and empowering.

Together, hundreds of us, we have built a new interest in national politics and their relevance for the hyper-local experience of flooding, and a critique of the resilience agenda. This very quick progress has been powered by truly amazing work in local areas.

Flood Action for North Scarle not only managed to persuade the EA to clear a ditch, possibly stopping a flood in storm Claudia. They also managed to beat a horrible situation and hopefully got rest over the holidays having turned a page.

SATBBAG managed to get a development deferred and are going in for another showdown on the 14th. They have been in the national media not once but twice. And one of their organisers is even getting ready to support other groups!

Paul Cawthorne of Hadnall highlighted issues to Severn Trent, who have now undertaken remedial works to stop sewer flooding. In the process, he turned out 60 people to a community meeting in a village, pressing developers!

Kathryn in Sandiacre managed to do something amazing. Frustrated by a vague S19, she downloaded rainfall and river gauge data and got Chat GPT to help her understand why she had flooded. We will be supporting other flooded people in replicating her.

There are many other inspiring stories. Siobhan went to the EAC and is now working with flooded people in her area on the problems in their catchment. Bruce Durham, a force of nature, has been supporting other groups. Stoney Stanton got a fundraising campaign going. Sally got a scheme pledged.

(If I have missed other successes, send them!)

Flooded people punch above their weight politically. My prediction and resolution for the year 2026 is that they will keep doing so with more strategy, more unity, more knowledge, and more capacity.

This year, we will lean into these strengths. We will be more intentional in our movement building. We’ll keep building our shared and local understanding of the causes of increased flooding. And we’ll launch a campaign against floodplain development.

Huge thank you for your trust in us. We’re back. Watch this space.

In solidarity,

Community notes, media review edition:

Where we tell you about all the exciting conversations and interactions between flooded people online and with our staff that happened this month, as well as general campaign gossip.