The County Council hosted a flood summit, Oxfordshire Under Water, on 29 November – good timing given the recent emergency. Because of climate change we’re experiencing rainfall events unlike anything we’ve seen before. So how do we improve our resilience to flooding?

The event was led by Cllr Pete Sudbury, with representatives from the various local authorities (staff and councillors), the Environment Agency, Thames Water, the farming community, environmentalists, and several flood groups.

In the breakout session five groups spent 30 mins each on two questions: how do we improve resilience, and what does an effective response to a flood event look like? This was a rich discussion with many common threads emerging in the feedback. One theme was the role local flood groups can play in spreading reliable information to neighbours and feeding back on issues to the various response agencies. There was general recognition this isn’t as organised as it should be.

Making the link between flooding and climate change, and the need for behaviour changes in society (dietary, travel, consumption) if we’re to contain global warming was also discussed. Local flood groups can help raise these issues. Social inequalities and the impact of flooding on disadvantaged households was also highlighted.

There is much we can do to improve on current ways of working, with more joined-up thinking, and collaboration to make the best use of scarce resources. Flood-risk reduction, nature conservation, sustainable food production and reducing carbon emissions are inter-related.

We need to move away from a society where people see themselves as ‘consumers’, expecting ‘service’, to one were we see ourselves as ‘citizens’ asking what we can do to contribute.