We are working on the projectwith local stakeholders to help improve the resilience of the Calder Valley region – an area devastated by the Boxing Day Floods in December 2015.
If successful, the five-year project will add value to the work being undertaken by the Environment Agency and Calderdale Council to create a more integrated approach to the management of water and land. By bringing together local communities and organisations such as Calderdale and Kirklees Councils, the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water, Natural England and the South Pennines Local Nature Partnership, among others, the Canal & River Trust will help to develop a cohesive range of projects across the Calder Valley landscape to help support people, communities and safeguard heritage.
Reconnecting communities with their waterways
Jane Thomson, our enterprise manager said: "Over 2,200 homes and 1,600 businesses from Todmorden to Dewsbury were seriously affected by the Boxing Day floods along with our 200-year old canal heritage infrastructure. There is a real urgency to deliver change and help the Calder Valley communities to become more resilient in future extreme natural events, both drought and extremerainfall through a more integrated approach to the management of the water and land. ‘Calder Valley Rising' would also importantly help to reconnect communities with their waterways along the length of the valley by making them more accessible and strengthening the connection and affection for them that already exists.