Schemes to help reduce flooding

The Community Flood Signage Scheme (CFSS) allows trained members of the community to close roads during times of flooding. The scheme promotes road safety, but also aims to stop vehicles creating bow waves which can cause further damage to property and distress to residents. The scheme is led by Nottinghamshire County Council and currently has over 550 Flood Signage Wardens active in over 40 areas across Nottinghamshire.

How you can help your community during a flood

By volunteering as a Flood Signage Warden, you can:

• prevent vehicles driving through flood water
• safely close roads susceptible to flooding, preventing potentially devastating accidents
• mitigate damage to property
• help your community be more flood resilient
• work with likeminded people to protect the most vulnerable members of your community.

Do I need any special skills?

To become a volunteer Flood Signage Warden you don’t need any previous experience or a huge amount of commitment. You only need to attend an initial one-day training session and a refresher course every three years. This will cover water safety, risk control, road safety and sign set up. When flooding occurs, there may be some unsociable hours of working and you will be required to move road closure signs.

How do I get involved?

If you would like to become a Flood Signage Warden please email flood.team@nottscc.gov.uk to express your interest. As a Flood Signage Warden you will work directly with the Flood Risk Management team at Nottinghamshire County Council and will receive a quarterly newsletter to keep you up to date on the scheme.

Download our Community Flood Signage Scheme (CFSS) flyer [PDF]

The county council and partner agencies are working hard to protect at-risk homes from flooding in Southwell.

We have set out detailed plans for flood mitigation schemes in the town, as well as natural flood management schemes and property flood resilience (PFR) measures with a number of these already completed and protecting many homes and businesses from the risk of flooding.

We are currently finalising proposals for a surface water storage reservoir on the Potwell Dyke which, once constructed, will conclude the £5.3m flood alleviation scheme and help protect over 240 properties and businesses across the town.

We are currently updating our FAQs and supporting project information which will be available via this page shortly.

Clearance works

The Southwell Flood Project includes the construction of an earth bund across Potwell Dyke, aligned in a west to east direction before extending southwards, and the provision of a control structure allowing the rate of water flow along the dyke to be restricted. This will ensure that homes downriver from the bund will be better protected in the event of a storm. Planning permission for the project was granted on 30 January 2025.

As part of the Southwell Flood Project, clearance works are planned to take place on a limited area of the land south of Church Street Higgon’s Mead site. These works are necessary to facilitate an archaeological survey which is scheduled to take place from July to September this year. The survey will involve an excavation which must be conducted to fulfil planning conditions before the construction of the main project starts next year in the summer.

The clearance of vegetation will be limited to the area required to enable the archaeological excavation.  All the vegetation to be cleared will be subject to bird nesting checks by a suitably qualified ecologist immediately prior to the works. The vegetation within the depression will be cleared in a directional two stage cut under ecological supervision by the ecologist to allow for the dispersal of common amphibians to adjacent retained habitat. In addition, any potential hibernacula features will be subject to fingertip search prior to disturbance. The clearance work will take two days to complete and will start on 8 April 2025.

If you have any queries about the works, please contact Via’s Project Team at: southwellfloodalleviation@viaem.co.uk.

Meanwhile, if you have any queries on the project please contact us through flood.team@nottscc.gov.uk

A project to protect 86 properties from flooding along the Titchfield Park Brook catchment has been allocated £912k of Flood Defence Grant in Aid and Local Levy funding for delivery in 20/21 with support from NCC capital.

The business case was approved in August 2019 and is progressing through detailed design stages. The project has three discreet elements and will delivered utilising expertise available from Ashfield District Council (as landowners of Titchfield Park) and Via East Midland Ltd. Property Flood Resilience measures will be delivered using the Environment Agency’s National Framework. Project completion is expected March 2021.

In February this year, Thoresby Dale in Hucknall experienced significant flooding of the public highway.

A joint response by Severn Trent Water, NCC and Via identified the cause of the flooding to be a significant blockage of the flood alleviation system downstream of Thoresby Dale. Once the blockage had been removed the system operated as designed. Whilst the flooding to the highway was significant there was no internal flooding. It should be noted that there has been no reported flooding since completion of the Flood Alleviation project other than this occasion.

Via are currently looking at ways of reducing the risk and consequences of future blockage related issues.

The Environment Agency are continuing to develop the outline business case for a flood alleviation scheme to protect Lowdham with a view to submitting their business case in August 2020.

Officers from the Flood Risk Management Team are liaising with the Project Team at the Environment Agency and the Lowdham Flood Action Group to help support progress of both the project a community resilience where necessary.

In July, DEFRA announced an additional £5m contribution to this project to help secure its deliverability. Working in Partnership with Severn Trent Water, we have helped deliver improvements to the management of surface water on the Southwell Road that will reduce the risk of flooding to a number of homes. These improvements were delivered by Severn Trent Water on our behalf whilst they were on site working on their sewerage system.

Further improvements are planned within the Old Tannery Drive estate and these will be completed once Covid 19 restrictions allow. This piece of work involves working in private gardens and as such it is harder to comply with working restrictions at the moment. These improvements are being funded by NCC Capital and a contribution from Via.