Event agenda
Treforest Growth is delighted to invite you to an event at Coleg y Cymoedd Nantgarw Campus, Nantgarw, Rhondda Cynon Taf, to specifically look at the challenges faced by the Treforest business community in the aftermath of Storm Dennis in 2020.
When: 9th November. Coffee at 9.00. Event promptly begins 9.30-11 AM. Stands will remain open until 4.00 PM
Where: Coleg y Cymoedd Nantgarw Campus, Nantgarw. Rhondda Cynon Taf
- 9:00-9:30 Coffee and audience gets seated
- 9:30-9:40 Councillor Robert Bevan
- 9:30-9:50 Ross Akers – Author of NRW flooding report
- 9:50-10:00 Road to Resilience with Gareth Boyd, Watertight CEO
- 10:00-10:45 Panel Discussion on Insurance, Flood Preparedness & Climate Adaption
Panelists Include:
- James Nicholas, Mileway
- Mark Arrowsmith, Watertight
- Peter May, JBA
- Jonathan Jackson, Previsico
- Ross Akers, NRW
- Tim England, NRW
- 10:45-11:00 Closing remarks from Matthew Tucker from Coleg y Cymoedd Nantgarw Campus
- 11:00-16:00 Network, visit stalls, set up appointments for PFR and Risk Assessments
Participating in the event:
Graham Brogden
Past Chair of the Property Flood Resilience Action Group
Graham retired from Aviva in 2020 as Head of Technical claims for Property and Specialty lines, responsible for the delivery of all property related major loss claims and as Chair of the DEFRA Property Flood Resilience (PFR) Roundtable
As Chair, Graham was heavily involved with the concept, development and launch of the PFR industry Code of Practice and is still heavily involved in the group. Graham’s passion for PFR remains and he now works as an independent consultant actively involved in the DEFRA Pathfinder projects.
Graham has extensive experience of flood resilience, particularly the SME sector having worked with many property owners following several major flood events and he is an advocate of preparedness and the understanding that pre flood actions have the greatest prospect for success.
Peter May
Associate Director and Head of Flood Resilience at JBA Consulting Ltd
Peter is Associate Director and part of JBA Consulting’s Resource Group South Management Team, based at JBA’s Newport office in Wales with specialisms and responsibilities in flood resilience and water resource management. He has over 40 years' experience in flood risk and water resource management, gained in both consultancy and in the public sector. For the past 12 years, Peter has been JBA’s Framework Manager on the national Property Flood Resilience (PFR) Framework, supporting Risk Management Authority PFR schemes for communities at flood risk, delivering independent property flood risk assessments and surveys.
Peter is a member of Defra’s PFR Roundtable, supporting many of the working group initiatives and provided advice and reviews of the PFR Code of Practice. He has worked on a wide variety of commissions for local authorities, Natural Resources Wales, Environment Agency, Defra, Scottish and Welsh Governments, including leading Property Flood Resilience Pathfinders, PFR policy research and scheme review, best practice guidance and e-learning projects.
Before joining JBA, Peter was Flood Risk Policy and Strategy Manager for the former Environment Agency Wales, responsible for ensuring flood management policy and strategies were relevant and appropriate for Wales, building close working relationships with Welsh Government officials, EA staff at Head Office and flood risk management staff across Wales. And prior to this, he was for 9 years the EA’s Severn Area Flood Risk and Water Resources Manager, managing a team of 50 providing the emergency planning, flood warning, operational flood response and water resource management for the Severn catchment.
Gareth Boyd
CEO - Watertight
Gareth as CEO of Watertight has overseen the development of Watertight as the leading providers of PFR in the UK and Ireland. Gareth manages the Environment Agency PFR national framework for Watertight and sits on the CIWEM advisory training panel for PFR, designed to deliver the industry code of practice and standards to the sector, with the aim of mainstreaming PFR as part of the wider solution to mitigate the risks of flooding and our changing climate.
Gareth has a particular interest in the challenges facing SMEs. As a business owner / Director himself, he appreciates the frustrations with issues relating to insurance and risk and is keen to present what solutions and opportunities are available to SMEs.
Mark Arrowsmith
Director - Watertight
Mark is Operations and Contracts Director at Watertight, based in Runcorn Cheshire but working nationally across the UK and Ireland. Mark has worked in the flood sector for over 15 years, managing both residential and commercial contracts to individual property owners and large organisations including Balfour Beattie, TFL and United Utilities.
Watertight do not manufacture products but provide solutions. Mark has a very close working relationship with all the leading flood product manufacturers in the UK and can design, advise and ensure the client gets the most appropriate solution according to need and budget.
Jonathan Jackson
Previsico
Jonathan is a serial entrepreneur in the Technology and Telecoms sector, including launching the UK’s longest running B2B internet business.
He joined Previsico as CEO to spin it out from Loughborough University and is leading the development of the US market. Jonathan is the Entrepreneur in Residence at Loughborough University and holds an MBA (Hons) from Northeastern University, Boston, USA.
Ross Akers
NRW
Ross is the Strategic Planning and Investment Manager for Flood Risk Management at Natural Resources Wales. His role operates at a national level providing oversight of NRW’s flood risk management investment plans, delivery programmes and also strategic policy regarding long term planning to address flood risk in Wales. His role includes acting as Capital Programme Manager overseeing NRW’s civil engineering programme which delivers new flood alleviation schemes and significant maintenance works across Wales.
Following the significant flooding that impacted Wales in February 2020 Ross led NRW’s internal review work and authored both the evidence report which collated factual information and data relating to the record setting February 2020 Floods and also NRW’s incident management review which identified key lessons and improvements for NRW to consider going forward.
Tim England
NRW
Tim is the Operations Manager – Flood and Water Management (South). The department he works in covers flood risk from Main Rivers and the Sea across the whole of South Wales, from the Severn Bridge in the east, to Haverfordwest in the west and north as far as Aberystwyth.
Activities we undertake include flood mapping and modelling, asset investment, flood incident management and development and flood risk advice. Tim also manages teams who operate and maintain our hydrometric network (river and rain gauge stations) and the hydrology team who provides advice internally and externally on all things related to hydrology (high and low flows).
Councillor Robert Bevan
RCT Council’s Cabinet Member for Enterprise Development and Housing
Background to Treforest
February 2020 was the wettest February on record according to the Met Office. Just a week after Storm Ciara, Storm Dennis resulted in substantial and intense rainfall with significant impacts on river flows, river levels and flooding across South Wales. The severe flood event affected much of Wales, and in particular from the River Taff at Pontypridd that impacted the Treforest Industrial Estate area.
In Pontypridd, the River Taff reached its highest level since records began in 1968. Peak flow passing through Pontypridd was estimated at 805 m3/s, enough to fill an Olympic size swimming pool in just over three seconds. The river level was 78cm higher than the previous record-level set during the 1979 floods
NRW flood defence embankments exist along the River Taff in the vicinity of Treforest Estate. These are assessed by NRW to provide a standard of protection of between 1:75 and 1:100 year (so affording protection from a flood with a chance of occurring of between 1.3% and 1% in any year).
However, the Storm Dennis flood event on the River Taff has been assessed by NRW to have equated to approximately a 1:200 year event (0.5% AEP). As a result, the river levels exceeded the design level and the flood defence embankments were over-topped.
NRW have stated their evidence suggests the flood defences did not fail, they were just overwhelmed by the volume of water exceeding their design standard. Further detailed post-flood investigations continue to be managed by NRW which will identify if there are any localised issues to consider
A significant number of properties were protected by NRW flood defences and the flood warnings helped many people to protect themselves, their families and their properties, as well as assist partner organisations with their response. However over 3,000 properties did unfortunately flood across Wales. There is a flood warning service that covers the Treforest Estate area but some of the Severe Flood Warnings on the River Taff were either missed or issued later than the target time, due to the extremely rapid rise in levels.
There is community wide protection in place in the form of flood defence embankments and a thorough review of the entire Lower Taff has been instigated to consider in detail the likely causes of flooding and identify where action may be needed in the future.
At an individual property owner level the focus is therefore very much on preparing for residual flood risk and improved flood resilience through local site works and emergency response and evacuation plans.
The Watertight Road to Resilience
Watertight are the UK and Ireland industry leading property flood resilience (PFR) management and solution providers with offices in Runcorn Cheshire and Bangor Northern Ireland. As Environment Agency PFR framework providers Watertight design, source, install and maintain bespoke and innovative property flood resilience solutions to both domestic and commercial clients including the EA, OPW, local authorities, main contractors, housing associations, communities and individual property owners.
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