A warm welcome was extended to STC Councillor Vanessa Benjamin-Smith who attended the August SAFAG meeting and has expressed an interest in joining the core team of Mike McCarthy, Brian Cooper, John Dinnie and Ben Goren. Any additional help will be very much appreciated. John Dinnie has decided to resign
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SAFAG Report to Shipston Town Council August 2025
Mike McCarthy’s pending house move away from the Tredington/Shipston area will result in the eventual departure of the last original member of the SAFAG team. It’s expected that this is likely to occur by the end of this year, or early 2026. Until then, he intends to remain semi active
SAFAG Report to Shipston Town Council July 2025
SAFAG’s role is evolving, with increasing emphasis on providing leads and introductions to the Environment Agency (EA) and Severn Rivers Trust (SRT). These organisations then produce reports to landowners and farmers for their consideration. Where agreement is reached, these agencies can fund and project manage any agreed interventions, such as
SAFAG Work Update
A lot of SAFAG’s work also involves connecting organisations like the SRT and EA with landowners interested in implementing natural flood management interventions and who wish to taking advantage of some of the funding available for NFM projects. For example, below we can see the photos of latest phase of
SAFAG work recognised by Environment Agency
The Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Research and Development Programme at the Environment Agency published this document on April 4th citing the success of pilot programmes to install Natural Flood Management features that are estimated to have created 1.6 million cubic metres of water storage (about the equivalent of around 670
Cherington Stourton Flood / Sewage Meeting
Following an invite from the organisers, on the 14th of March SAFAG attended a three hour meeting concerning issues of flooding and sewage in Stourton and Cherington. The meeting was co-ordinated and chaired by MP for the Stratford constituency Manuella Perteghella, with approximately 50 to 60 residents in attendance. In addition, a
Maintenance at Henbrook
A team of five SAFAG members and volunteers spent a few hours yesterday slowing the flow and attenuating the surface water run off on a very hilly estate in Brailes close to the source of the Henbrook stream. This involved reinforcing and building up some of the existing natural flood
Report on the Sunday 24th November ’24 Flood
Shot taken 21:53 Sunday November 24th. Following a few weeks of intermittent rain and then a covering of snow, on top of already heavily soaked land, it took only 40mm of rain recorded at the Shipston rain gauge (47mm in Cherington) to send the Stour through Shipston to a peak
Spring 2024 Update
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 Memoriam. Phil Wragg 1947 – 2024
When the River Stour rose to its highest ever recorded level on 20th July 2007 it flooded more than 80 homes and businesses in Shipston, including the house that Phil Wragg and his wife Liz had moved in to only two months earlier. From that day onwards, Phil campaigned tirelessly