Informing future flood resilience best practice, we recently undertook an Independent Flood Review of flooding that affected Milton Keynes in 2018, assessing its impact and assisting Milton Keynes Council (MKC) on the route to recovery.
The flooding in Milton Keynes on 27 May 2018, which occurred due to an intense rainfall event which overwhelmed local drainage systems, is estimated to have affected several roads, the local hospital and 1,000 properties across the area, half of which were internally flooded. Of these, 42 properties were evacuated, leaving their occupants displaced and requiring varying levels of welfare support.
We undertook an Independent Flood Review to identify the damages of the flooding (estimated to be over £7 million), key infrastructure affected by and impacting flood risk and the response from risk management agencies to manage the flooding. This fed into the development of a framework for MKC and other organisations to improve flood resilience and collaboration in the future.
Through consultation with MKC, Community Flood Action Groups, external partners and engaging and collecting feedback from over 6,200 residents and 320 businesses, the review identified over 50 recommendations to achieve this. As a result, additional Community Flood Action Groups have been initiated, which has led to flood action plans being drafted. The Independent Flood Review improved collaboration between an unusually large number of organisations and varying local communities by analysing the effects of flooding as well as the measures that were taken to counteract them before, during and after the event.
The report, which was completed in March 2020, has provided Milton Keynes communities with a variety of tools to help them cope with extreme events in the future and provided the justification for investment to do so, dramatically increasing the community’s resilience.