SRA Annual Report 2024-25: New SRA Community Flood Action Fund for Somerset
In December 2024, Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) launched a Community Flood Action Fund (CFAF). CFAF’s purpose is to provide small grants – between £3,000 and £20,000 – for works to reduce flooding in Somerset.
CFAF is aimed at not-for-profit organisations. Applicants who may apply include town and parish councils, parish meetings, charities, social enterprises and community benefit societies.
The SRA’s goal in setting up CFAF is to help people with good local knowledge of flooding problems take practical actions with obvious benefits that can be achieved quite quickly. Why? Because local people know most about water flows and blockages, and one of the main themes in the SRA’s Strategy 2024-34 is working with communities across Somerset to reduce the risks and impacts of flooding.
For CFAF’s first year of operation, the SRA Board agreed to allocate £200,000. Applications for grants are considered quarterly. The first deadline for bids was in February 2025. In this round, seven applicants were successful, getting grants totalling just over £77,000. All were parish councils: Cotford St Luke, Creech St Michael, Long Sutton, Stoke St Mary, West Buckland, West Camel, West Monkton.
CFAF has so far proved very popular.
Its introduction was part of wider efforts to update some of the workings of the SRA as a partnership and accord with the new SRA Strategy 2024-34.
So, for example, the SRA also revised its processes for producing and agreeing an annual Enhanced Programme of works. Moves included new criteria, new forms, new scoring mechanisms.
One result of these shifts was that Exmoor National Park Authority was invited for the first time to apply for a grant, and it got one for a proposed River Barle restoration at Simonsbath (below).
