THE Government’s Floods Minister Thérèse Coffey visited Ryedale last week following the announcement of a £50,000 grant for natural flood management.

The Derwent Villages project has been allocated the government funding and will be community led, providing better protection to more than 260 properties in the villages of Thornton-le-Dale, Hovingham, Sinnington and Gilling East.

Ms Coffey met with project organisers and discussed plans for the scheme.

Natural flood management techniques such as restoring bogs and reintroducing river bends to slow the flow of water are being considered and there will be opportunities for the local community to get involved in monitoring and maintaining different parts of the project.

She said: “Work on natural flood management projects across Yorkshire will soon be underway, with communities using the local landscape to harness rivers and slow their flows.

“This will be a great opportunity for schemes across the country to share their own tailored successes – further improving Yorkshire’s natural flood defences and building on the £440 million we have already committed to better protect the region from flooding by 2021.”

The Derwent Villages project team will draw on the natural flood management scheme, which is already successfully up and running in Pickering.

During her visit to Yorkshire, Minister Coffey also visited Cropton Forest, part of the Pickering Slow the flow project, to see the completed woody debris dams and hear how they could be used to similar effect in Yorkshire’s new community schemes.

Sir James Bevan, Environment Agency chief executive, who accompanied the Minister on both parts of the visit, said: "Natural flood management is an important part of our approach to reducing flood risk, alongside the more traditional hard flood defences.

“These schemes are a fantastic example of how we can work together with local communities and use

natural techniques to reduce flood risk.”