On Wednesday 7th December 2011, Angela attended the Preparing to Prosper:  Building Resilience to Change Workshop at the Exeter MET office.  www.metoffice.gov.uk/events

Speakers included:

Alex Webb from Climate South West,

 

Manda Brookman from CoaST (The Cornwall Sustainable Tourism Project)

 

Emma Whittle sea – Chair of the Climate South West Tourism Sector Group, University of Plymouth

From this day, Angela learnt how to adapt and prepare for climate change.

‘The weather is changing, are you?’, was one of the questions asked.  In response to this, Angela came away with the following information:

1. Overall flooding in the south west, flash floods and flooding will continue to be a problem eg. Boswall – in the past there was one crises every 100 years, now it’s 2 every 10 years.
2. Creating action for preventative measures in case of floods eg. flood defences – sandbags, floodgates, drainage systems.
3. The above point also helps with your insurance, as you have put in place everything possible to aid against the worst from happening.
4. Penny Tranter – Adviser, MET Office provided great tips for tourists in the South West. One of which was:
   • The MET office have put out a new website www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/beta/ which offers weather forecasts especially designed for tourists/holidays makers preparing them for getting the most of their every day activities, and in the future will also include 101 things to do on a rainy day in Cornwall.
5. Shorter and hotter drier summers are predicted with some drought problems.
6. We have not had a hosepipe ban for the last number of years, due to the pumping facilities at our local reservoirs in the South West.

Within the next few weeks, we will be providing links to the aforementioned websites from our own site.

 

Actions taken by us – ‘The Coombe Farm & Woodlands Trust’ – over the past two years include:

1. The walkway from The Farmhouse up to The Oak Tree has been converted from a mud track & grass to a stoned path, so whilst on holiday you can still participate in walks23 whatever the weather.
2. We readjusted our subsidence problem in a section of the woodlands by re-building the pathway, so that’s it’s still possible to walk along it without danger of flooding.
3. We have sandbags at all our main doors of our buildings and outbuildings, as a preventative measure.
4. We constantly maintain our drainage systems around our grounds, although we are on a hill, by being in a coombe, our drains can regularly block up, through gravity sending the water downwards, so we maintain the drains regularly to prevent them from blocking or overflowing. 
   
   If you’d like help with preparing for flooding, then contact: 0845 988 1188

   or visit www.environment-agency.gov.uk/floodline