Make Flood Resilience for your Business your New Year’s Resolution

designed to help business owners be aware, prepare and take practical steps to reduce the impact that flooding can have on their operations

- The Know Your Flood Risk campaign launches guide on Flood Resilience for Businesses -

The Know Your Flood Risk campaign is today launching a new Guide to Flood Resilience for businesses, developed by two former flood victims, Mary Dhonau OBE and Carly Rose. With over 4,000 business premises affected by flood waters in December 2015, the supplement provides highly practical guidance on steps all businesses can take to make their premises flood resilient.

As Mary Dhonau, Chief Executive of the Know Your Flood Risk Campaign explains: “Just over a year ago, record levels of rainfall were recorded, with the Environment Agency issuing over 90 severe flood warnings. While 13,000 households were directly impacted, we mustn’t forget about the thousands of businesses that also bared the brunt of the deluge. But, how do you know if your business is at risk of flooding and if it is, what to do about it?

We’ve created the new business flood resilience supplement, which includes an emergency plan template to really act as a guiding hand on what steps to follow to make your office, factory or other commercial facility resilient to flooding. By following the advice, it will help to make recovery that much quicker.”

The new guide is a supplement to Know Your Flood Risk’s popular Homeowners Guide to Flood Resilience and is designed to help business owners be aware, prepare and take practical steps to reduce the impact that flooding can have on their operations. It includes a design prototype of a flood resilient commercial building, which can be used as a helpful guide for those new to considering flood resilience measures for their office, factory or commercial building.

Adds Mary: “It’s so important to safeguard local economies and jobs. Only a few weeks ago we have seen the British Insurance Brokers' Association launch a new commercial insurance scheme for businesses with properties located in areas at risk from flooding, which has been created with input from Landmark Information Group, Guy Carpenter and R&Q Commercial Risk Services. This scheme takes into consideration the use of any property-level resilience products when pricing the premium and is a great step forward. Now, our free supplement delivers pragmatic guidance to support businesses in making sure they are aware and prepared for future flood events to help minimise resulting business downtime.”

Over the Christmas period Lord John Krebs from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said it was important to learn from the run of floods that have affected parts of the country in recent years. He was quoted as saying “Almost every year there has been some more or less major flooding event and that is a key message. We have to now get it embedded that this is something that will happen somewhere most years.”

Concludes Mary: “With the Committee on Climate Change suggesting that flood events are something we need to be mindful of each year, it’s vital that business leaders and commercial property owners take steps now to make sure that, should the worse happen and flood waters breach their premises, they are prepared and have taken steps to lessen the negative impact on both the building and their business interests.”

To download a free copy of the new business supplement, or access a copy of the comprehensive Homeowners’ Guide to Flood Resilience, visit www.knowyourfloodrisk.co.uk. For more information, follow the Know Your Flood Risk campaign on Twitter.

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Notes to Editors:
- Mary Dhonau OBE is available for interviews – contact Peppa Sheridan on 01787 313822 to schedule an interview or Mary can be reached directly on 07754 592534.
- Images are available on request.

About Know Your Flood Risk:
Know Your Flood Risk is a campaign raising awareness of the risk of flooding from all sources - not just from the river, sea, or a visible water course. The majority of flood insurance claims are for surface water flooding where there is no obvious water to alert a homeowner to the potential risk. The Know Your Flood Risk campaign provides essential practical guidance to enable homeowners and property professionals mitigate against and prepare for the risk of being flooded. The campaign supplies a property-specific flood report, which can be used by homeowners to help identify the potential risk and has created a free smartphone app. More information is available at www.knowyourfloodrisk.co.uk.

https://twitter.com/flooduk

About Mary Dhonau OBE Hon DSc Hon RICS:
Since 2000, Mary Dhonau has championed flood awareness, protection and resilience and is a passionate advocate of empowering communities to recognise and take responsibility for minimising their collective flood risk. Mary was awarded an OBE for services to the environment in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2009. In December 2014, she was awarded Honorary RICS (HonRICS) status, in recognition of her high profile in standing-up for the public’s interest regarding flooding. Mary was also given the ‘Voice of the Customer ‘award and the CII Public Interest Awards 2015. She was also awarded with an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the West of England in July 2015 for outstanding national contribution to flood risk management.

https://twitter.com/floodmary

Editor’s Contact:
Peppa Sheridan, Peptalk Communications
01787 313822 / peppa@peptalkpr.co.uk