StARR Green Spaces - how you can help to prevent flooding in your community

The StARR project is delivering a wide range of schemes to help reduce the risk of flooding across the Par River catchment.

As part of this we are using Natural Flood Management (NFM) to increase a community's flood resilience by working with natural and habitats processes, rather than against them. The NFM approach assesses a river catchment from source to sea and intervenes at various stages in order to slow the flow of water, improve drainage and better manage its course as it flows through built up areas. Compared to more engineered flood structures NFM also has additional benefits such as reducing pollution, storing carbon and providing important homes for our wildlife.

The community of Par and St Blazey could add even more benefit to the area by identifying places where additional NFM measures could be established.

Do you know of sites where the river and rain water could be slowed? or where you or your community could:

• collect rainwater from the roof of a building using a water butt
• create rain gardens to reduce the amount of roof water directly entering the river or sewer
• plant trees to increase water going into the soil
• build Cornish hedges to slow the pathway to the river
• create ditches or ponds to hold water back temporarily
• improve your soils so less water runs off the surface.

If you are landowner with an area of land in the Par River catchment from St Blazey to the A30 near Bodmin and everything in between, and would you like advice and/or support on how to slow flows so that we are more prepared for climate change, please share your ideas with us below, or contact us at starr@cornwall.gov.uk