WHO WE ARE

WHAT IS SAFAG?

SAFAG is a community-led Flood Action Group that was formed in 2014 by flood victims in Shipston and some surrounding communities. With tremendous support from more than 60 landowners and farmers, we installed more than 860 Natural Flood Management (NFM) interventions across the 180 sq. km. Stour Catchment between 2017 and 2022. These interventions are now playing a crucial role in reducing the risk of flooding in our area.

With funding becoming increasingly difficult to obtain, we are currently focussing our limited resources on monitoring, enhancing, and maintaining the existing 860 NFM assets already in place. However, there is plenty of scope to do far more, and we will be working closely with Warwickshire County Council to develop further plans for 2024 and beyond.

Maintenance of NFM Assets

Maintenance is a vital part of SAFAG’s work. With more than 860 NFM assets across the Stour Catchment we aim to assess 33% of our interventions each year on a rolling programme of visits. When possible, we try to view and film the dams, ponds and bunds when the rivers are in spate so that we can assess the effectiveness of the construction and design. Further inspections when the waters have subsided allow us to assess any damage, with repairs and enhancements usually taking place in drier conditions. Encouragingly, the need for repair/replacement has not been significant, with almost of our early installations looking as strong and effective as they were in 2017-18.

The SAFAG team have been very busy, in both 2023 and 2024 carrying out a multitude of intervention assessments, then followed by the required repairs/maintenance to the natural flood management leaky woody dams some of which have been damaged following the extremely heavy and regular storms over the winter periods. In this time we have  refurbed and repaired 870 NFM installations.

SAFAG is a recognised, constituted volunteer group with representatives from 9 neighbouring communities and strong relationships with the various agencies involved in flood management. Over the last seven years we have gained the support of dozens of landowners and farmers for our plans.