Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) gives Somerset more flood protection and greater resilience. It provides extra information. It provides greater opportunities for different people and groups, different organisations and places to work together. People’s collective experience and knowledge helps to make people's lives safer and easier. What the SRA does not do: it does not get involved in coastal flood risk matters. Or in emergency responses to flooding or in flood recovery efforts. So, for example, it does not supply sandbags, set up pumps, or clear debris. The SRA’s creation was proposed in the Somerset Levels and Moors Flood Action Plan. This major 20-year blueprint for progress was drawn up during the awful floods of 2013-14. Somerset Rivers Authority was launched on 31 January 2015 as a unique partnership of local Flood Risk Management Authorities. SRA partners are Somerset Council, the Parrett and Axe Brue Internal Drainage Boards, the Environment Agency, Natural England, Wessex Regional Flood & Coastal Committee and Wessex Water. Representatives of all these bodies sit on the SRA Board. Upon the SRA's formation, the scope of the Flood Action Plan was widened to include the whole of Somerset. The SRA oversees this Flood Action Plan, and the newer SRA Strategy 2024-34. The SRA funds works that meet the five objectives in its Strategy:
1. Reduce the risks and impacts of flooding across Somerset.
2. Maintain access and connections during times of flood for communities and businesses across Somerset.
3. Increase the resilience of people, places and the environment to flooding, while adapting to climate change.
4. Protect Somerset’s economy from the impacts of flooding, promote business confidence and encourage new opportunities.
5. Conserve and enhance Somerset’s special environments (natural, built, social, cultural) for all who live and work in Somerset and visit. The SRA does not take away any of its partners’ existing responsibilities or accountabilities (nor any of Somerset landowners’ existing responsibilities or accountabilities). The SRA does extra – not instead.
