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Lancashire Local Flood Risk Management Strategy 2021 – 2027

Introduction

The Flood and Water Management Act 2010 designated Blackburn-with-Darwen Council, Blackpool Council and Lancashire County Council as Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFAs). This followed serious flooding across the UK, and aimed to improve resilience to flooding by providing a framework for organisations which are responsible for managing water to work together, and with local communities, to manage flood risk.

The councils have a range of powers, duties and responsibilities and are responsible for managing flood risk from 'local' sources. These local sources of flooding are surface water, groundwater and 'ordinary watercourses' – a term covering a number of smaller watercourses which do not form part of a main river.

Local Flood Risk Management Strategy 2021 - 2027

Under Section 9 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, Lead Local Flood Authorities must produce a Local Flood Risk Management Strategy which is consistent with the National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy.  Lancashire's Lead Local Flood Authorities have produced a joint strategy which sets out:

  • context about the ways in which we manage flood risk
  • local flood risks, challenges and opportunities for Lancashire
  • our vision for how we can address these risks and challenges, and how we will make the most of opportunities
  • our business plan, setting out how and when measures will be implemented to achieve this
  • how we will monitor and review delivery of our strategy

When the strategy was approved

Cabinet approvals were secured from Lancashire County Council (4 November 2021), Blackpool Council (11 October 2021) and Blackburn-with-Darwen Council (8 November 2021) through October and November 2021, with the last approval being granted on 8 November 2021.

Read the strategy

If you require a copy of the strategy in an accessible format, please contact: 0300 123 6780 / highways@lancashire.gov.uk  

Strategy consultation

A five-week public consultation of the draft strategy was held from 12 February to 19 March 2021. 175 responses were received, and the draft strategy was subsequently revised appropriately to reflect the comments received during the consultation.

The previous strategy

The Lancashire Local Flood Risk Management Strategy 2014-2017 was produced in partnership with Blackpool Council and was approved in April 2014.

It was necessary to produce a new strategy for two key reasons:

  • the previous strategy has reached the end of its life, and;
  • the new National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy was published by the Environment Agency in September 2020 requiring local strategies to be updated to ensure they are consistent. This is requirement of Section 9(5) of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010.