Purpose

The purpose of Operation Watershed is to support people in their local communities who want to work with the County Council to become more prepared for, or to reduce the risk of, flooding. Local groups are encouraged to apply for funding to finance schemes and projects of all sizes as a way of achieving this.

In 2025/26, £0.479m is allocated for Operation Watershed. A further £2.155m is in the capital programme 2026/27 to 2030/31 for future years Operation Watershed, to be agreed by Full Council in February 2026.  In the period to December 2025, eight applications have been approved, totalling £468,542.86. Since then, a further four applications (the subject of this report) have been received and evaluated with a total project cost of £241,213.83

Decision

The Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change has approved the applications from the community groups or parish councils as set out in section 2 and Appendices A1 to A4 of the report (total value of £241,213.83).