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Flood and water

Hi Susie, welcome to our seventh Cambridgeshire flood and water newsletter.

The council oversees local flood risk including the management of groundwater and surface water flood risks and the regulation of ordinary watercourses. We work in partnership with the Environment Agency, district and parish councils, water companies and Internal Drainage Boards.

Managing flood risk and increasing community resilience in Cambridgeshire is our priority and we work closely with residents to achieve this.

This newsletter provides you with information, advice and guidance relating to flooding, and how to manage watercourses depending on time of the year. We also promote upcoming events and provide information on local flood groups. Where relevant, we share local case studies.

Top stories

Flood Action Week 2025 (13-19 October)

The UK is experiencing more frequent and intense extreme weather due to climate change, and this year, the Met Office has warned of a wetter than average autumn. Communities are warned not to be complacent about the risk of flooding following this summer’s dry weather.

Rainfall was up to a third higher than usual in 2024, and last winter, the Environment Agency issued more than 3,000 flood alerts, 1,600 flood warnings, and three severe flood warnings to people at risk.

In England there are around 6.3 million homes and businesses in areas at risk of flooding, but many people are unaware and unprepared. The cost of flooding to a home can be tens of thousands of pounds.

Flooding also brings significant risk to life, damage to homes, businesses and communities, and can impact people’s mental health.

Preparing for a flood, and knowing what to do when it happens, can reduce these impacts.

Flood Action Week encourages the public to check their flood risk, sign-up to flood warnings and understand the immediate actions they can take to keep themselves and their loved ones safe, and reduce the devastating impacts flooding can cause to homes, families and livelihoods.

It also invites people to consider more planned actions, like installing property flood resilience measures that can make homes and businesses more flood resilient in the longer term.

Check out the 5 things you can do this #FloodActionWeek to be better prepared for a flood at: Be Flood Smart | Property Flood Resilience | Home Flood Defences.

Take action to protect yourself, your family and your home now.

Protect yourself from future flooding

The council will also be launching a flooding resilience campaign later this week, offering advice on steps residents can take to protect their homes as well as promoting community flood groups across Cambridgeshire.

Keep an eye on our social media channels and our dedicated webpage for more information.

How to prepare for flooding

Community watercourse maintenance grants

Cambridgeshire County Council is offering community watercourse maintenance grants of up to £10,000 to support local flood groups in reducing flood risk.

This funding enables community flood group or parish council flood group working parties to take ownership of their flood resilience.

What can the grant be used for?

• Vegetation clearance and debris removal

• Minor repairs to banks or channels

• Equipment hire or contractor support

• Volunteer training and safety equipment

• Other essential maintenance activities.

Who can apply?

• Community flood groups with a clear plan for action

• Parish councils with a flood group working party.

Grants are only available where:

• The riparian owner is unknown or unable to carry out maintenance

• Riparian ownership is complex, making coordination of maintenance difficult, potentially increasing flood risk. For example, needing to involve multiple landowners with different responsibilities along a single watercourse.

Applications are assessed using the community watercourse grant scoring criteria. Successful applicants will need to enter a grant agreement and hold suitable insurance. Flood groups without insurance may wish to partner with their parish council to apply.

Learn more about community watercourse grants

Ramsey flooding project

For the past year Cambridgeshire County Council Flood Risk Team has led a pilot project in Ramsey, alongside Ramsey Town Council and Huntingdonshire District Council (HDC), to tackle fly tipping in Slade Dyke which increases flood risk to residential properties.

Prolific fly tipping along Slade Dyke in Ramsey causes obstruction in the watercourse and increases flood risk to nearby residential properties. Approximately 50 properties were internally flooded in 2020 as a result.

On Monday 1 September 2025, signposts were installed near the dyke with QR codes linking to an artificial intelligence (AI) chat bot and reporting tool. The aim is to increase understanding of the impacts of fly tipping and allow real time reporting which can be accessed by HDC Operations Team, who enforce against fly tipping, and Ramsey Town Council who clear small incidents.

The system will give residents the opportunity to report fly tipping to the relevant council authorities, giving them agency in the process of reducing risk, and allowing local authorities to consult CCTV for evidence against fly tippers. The hope is that this will assist the authorities in their statutory duties, educate and empower the community.

Flood Risk Team visit to St Germans Pumping Station

On 18 of September 2025, the Flood Risk team accepted an invitation from the Middle Level Commissioners to visit their pumping station at Wiggenhall St Germans near Kings Lynn.

St Germans is the largest land drainage pumping station in the UK and the second largest in Europe. It is located at the end of the Middle Level Main Drain and pumps water up into the tidal River Great Ouse, from where it flows into the North Sea. As the sole outlet for the Middle Level catchment, it is a vital piece of infrastructure which protects low lying areas including over 25,000 properties and 700 square kilometres of agricultural land from flooding.

The current facility started operating in 2010 and was built to replace the original pumping station, which dates back to 1934. The new station utilises cutting-edge technology to increase capacity and improve efficiency.

It has six huge submersible electric pumps each designed to run independently from one another. Each pump has its own back- up diesel generator which is used to prevent them overwhelming the nearby substation when all operating at once.

When demand is high and all the pumps are working together, they have the capacity to lift 100 tonnes of water every second, which is the equivalent of five Olympic swimming pools in two minutes!

For more information on the history and workings of St Germans, the Middle Level Commissioners have produced a short film entitled 90 Years of Pumping at St Germans.

Additional support for Community Flood Groups

Following our survey of flood groups earlier this year, you highlighted that some of your biggest challenges are low community engagement and participation and insufficient training and expertise. To try and help with this, we are obtaining quotes from charities and organisations who specialise in supporting community flood groups to provide:

• A series of Cambridgeshire specific webinars offering practical guidance on forming and running community flood groups, including planning, volunteer management, flood response, and understanding flood types
• In-person workshops covering similar topics but with interactive sessions, case studies and group learning exercises
• Supporting materials for groups to use independently such as leaflets, fact sheets, templates and volunteer role descriptions.

We will update the groups as soon as possible.

Events and opportunities

Watercourse Safari

We are working to improve our understanding of local flood risk by mapping all watercourses and their outfalls. While we already have the Watercourse Mapping Tool, we know some smaller watercourses may be missing. This is where your local knowledge can help.

We’re inviting communities to take part in a ‘watercourse safari’ which involves exploring your local area to spot any unmapped watercourses or outfalls.

How to get involved:
• View the Watercourse Mapping Tool to see which watercourses are already featured on the map.
• Take a walk around your local area and note any missing watercourses or outfalls.

• Please email flood.andwater@cambridgeshire.gov.uk with your findings which should include the location of the watercourse/outfall and a photo.

Your input will help us create more accurate catchment maps and support local flood management.

Anglian Northern Regional Flood and Coastal Committee Vacancy

The Anglian (Northern) Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC) are currently recruiting one new independent member, to start in July 2026, to help shape local plans and influence the future of the environment.

This is an exciting opportunity to work with the Risk Management Authorities and others to help create partnerships which fund and deliver projects which reduce the impact of flood risk on local communities. The Anglian (Northern) RFCC covers Greater Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, including the South Humber; Welland, Nene and Witham catchments.

They are currently looking for candidates who:
• have an active interest in flood and coastal risk management
• can represent the interests of communities across our region
• come from a diverse range of backgrounds
• are impartial and not representatives of any particular organisation.

You don’t have to be a technical expert or have specific qualifications for most roles. It’s your enthusiasm and commitment to your local community that is most important. However, an interest in one or more of the following areas may be useful:

• spatial planning, engineering, or construction

• business and economics

• asset management

• managing resilience and recovery

• conservation

• farming and land management.

Anglian Northern vacancies: Anglian Northern RFCC - Environment Agency

Further general information about the RFCC vacancies and vacancies in other areas: Regional Flood and Coastal Committees - Environment Agency.

The deadline for completed applications is Sunday 16 November.