Protecting England’s most flooded town

Overview

Looe in South East Cornwall is the one of the UK's most flooded towns. Due to climate change the frequency and severity of flooding is likely to increase.

Various schemes have been put forward to manage the risk over the past 20 years, however, none of these had proven acceptable to the local community. In 2015, Looe Harbour Commissioners funded work to develop proposals for a new flood defence scheme which had widespread support and as a result Cornwall Council committed £2.3M to developing a scheme for the town.

Hamish Hall from WSP and Nigel Horwell of Arcadis will explain the journey over the last 18 months to develop a scheme to protect against flooding, adapt the town to rising sea levels and level up the wider South East Cornwall economy.