Newsletter #4 (May 2025)

Dear all,

A note from Louis: Welcome to newsletter #4. If you're just joining us, happy to have you! Today, we are delighted to share our strategy for working with flooded communities moving forward. I therefore thought I'd let Sanjay, the strategy's architect, take the lead in explaining. As always, your responses welcome.

A new way forward: turning local flood action into national change

If you’ve been flooded, you know how urgent it is. You don’t waste time. You learn about the policies. You meet with your MPs. You talk to the media. You knock on your neighbours’ doors. You bring people together. Flood groups all over the country are taking bold, self-led action to reduce local risk – and it’s making a real difference.

Rightly, these brilliant actions are focused on what's happening locally – and that matters. But we are not seeing enough done to support flooded people. We need to make this a national issue.

We believe you can.

To do this, we’d need to shift how we talk about flooding nationally — to journalists, to politicians, and to each other. We must build networks across flooded communities not in isolation but as part of a collective voice. By coming together as people who’ve lived through rising waters, we can connect our local struggles to a bigger picture — one where our combined efforts drive national policy changes that protect more people, more fairly.

We need a shared understanding and a strong national message

• We need to build a stronger, well-informed community that knows how and why flooding happens – and what to do about it and can articulate this on a national stage.

• We need to raise the bar for media coverage, changing the public conversation about flooding.

• We need to push MPs to do more, because their voters – us – are demanding better.

To make this shift, we need to prepare.

We’ve been meeting many of you across the country, hearing your stories and struggles as you work to reduce your flood risk. These conversations have made one thing clear: we are not alone, and the challenges we face are shared. It shows the urgent need to connect and coordinate around a national campaign — as flooded people, united. To do this, we need to shift how we talk about flooding nationally.

A gathering of flooded people:

We are inviting flooded people to a get together where we will start building this shared message and analysis and decide how to leverage it for action.

Our proposed get-together isn’t just a meeting — it’s a turning point. We’re building a national campaign shaped by you — by the ideas, energy, and experiences of flooded people across the country. Over the past six months, we’ve visited communities facing down flood risk with determination and creativity. We’ve seen local action spark change — and we’ve seen where it hits a wall. That’s why this autumn, we’re coming together not just to connect, but to make sure your voices drive the campaign forward.

We need flooded people at this get together to:

• Highlight where local efforts stalled — and where national change could have made the difference.

• Look back at how UK flood policy has shifted before — and explore how we can push it to shift again.

• Offer clear, practical ways national advocacy can back up — not drown out — the work you’re already doing on the ground.

It’s time to mainstream flooding and flood risk. To move from scattered struggle to coordinated pressure. And to show what’s possible when flooded people stand together, speak louder, and demand more. FOR FLOODED PEOPLE BY FLOODED PEOPLE!

Flooded People UK will send out a formal invite soon. We hope you’ll join us – and help lead the way from local strength to national change.

Sincerely,

Sanjay Johal - community organiser

Community notes

This month, the Stoney Stanton group welcomed Harry and Sanjay and gave a profoundly moving interview. We have shared one clip on our Linkedin page, which can be found here, and will be sharing more clips in the community on Facebook. Well done to Ann, Liz, and John for speaking so powerfully. 

Special shout out to Siobhan Connor (Shrewsbury Quarry Flood Action Group) for her testimony to the Environmental Audit Committee's inquiry into flood resilience. Siobhan's testimony moved the chair to write Rachel Reeves, imploring her not to cut capital spending on flood defences. We have also shared part of her testimony on Linkedin. 

We are actively capturing flooded people's stories. If you are interested in sharing them on your social media for amplification, please reach out. 

Research note: a thousand schemes?

It has become a popular message for minister Emma Hardy to argue that her government is investing in 1,000 schemes. We downloaded the spreadsheet that Defra released as part of the announcement. Not only does it contain only 750 schemes, but many of them aren't really schemes at all, and the amount of investment pledged, if approved, would not come close to guaranteeing that the schemes in question would even be completed. Also, we found schemes with £300m already invested in them have not been selected to go ahead. So we're not entirely sure what is going on... Read our report here.