About Warwickshire Wildlife Trust/Finham Brook Flood Group

Award: 35,700

Awarded to: Warwickshire Wildlife Trust

Date of award: 12/01/2023

Warwickshire Wildlife Trust (WWT) have been working with the Finham Brook Flood Group over the last few years, undertaking site visits and discussions with landowners.  WWT will be delivering the practical work and monitoring on sites and appointing contractors as needed. The project funding is used to deliver natural flood management measures in the Finham Brook catchment area (Finham Brook and Inchford Brook), with the aim of reducing the peak height of the Finham Brook after intense rainfall events. This will reduce the number of occurrences of flooding at domestic properties, at the Castle Road and Rouncil Lane fords, and the Odibourne Allotments.

The measures to be used on sites will be further developed after detailed surveys and landowner discussions but examples include:

  • Leaky dams and large woody deflectors
  • Swales, wetlands and off line ponds
  • Infill planting of gaps in hedgerows
  • Alternative methods of soil management in arable land.
  • Buffer strip creation
  • Riparian tree planting and woodland creation.

To achieve reduction in flood risk to the Kenilworth Town centre area, it is essential to work across the upstream catchment of the brooks, slowing the flow of flood water and creating flood water storage capacity through a series of measures. Creating scrapes and pools to fill in times of flood, and to slowly drain down over a period of hours or a few days, slows the flow into the more constrained stretches of watercourses e.g. at fords, close to houses, and at bridge crossing points, and so reduces the likelihood of flood. Use of natural flood management measures will also increase water quality in the Inchford and Finham Brooks, as well as watercourses further downstream, and support the aims for safe bathing waters in the Warwickshire River Avon.

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