As part of Humber Business Week, the Flood Innovation Centre and Living With Water are inviting businesses to a live event on Wednesday 8 June aimed at helping them to boost their flood resilience and play their part in making Hull a greener place to live and work.
The session, which will take place at the Aura Innovation Centre at Bridgehead Business Park, Hessle, will help businesses of all sizes to discover how they can play a part in Living with Water’s Blue-Green Vision for Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire, a city-wide investment to manage the shared flood risk posed by surface water.
As well as being able to learn how to better protect themselves, their employees and their assets from flooding, business will be able to find out how they can contribute towards making the city greener, regardless of their size.
Lee Pitcher, Head of Partnerships at Yorkshire Water and General Manager of Living With Water said:
“The aspiration of the Living With Water partnership is to work together with the public sector, private sector and communities to co-design and develop water sensitive urban regeneration which manages flood risk, enhances the environment and improves the well-being of the region. Involving businesses of all sizes in the development of that vision will ensure that we all reap the benefits.”
Pip Betts, Project Manager of the Flood Innovation Centre, said:
“Our team will be on-hand to chat with businesses about how they can reduce the flood risk to their business premises, get involved in developing, delivering and maintaining sustainable drainage systems and, at the same time, improve their place of work to benefit employees and/or customers and achieve their sustainability goals.”
Living with Water’s Blue Green Vision is to make the area more resilient by using sustainable drainage systems – or SuDS, as they are sometimes known – to manage surface water. Sustainable drainage systems help to manage surface water caused by rainfall. They aim to mimic natural drainage by slowing and capturing the water flow and channeling it away from drains and sewers. Along with flood risk reduction benefits, sustainable drainage systems also provide much wider benefits for communities. Living With Water is adopting a city water resilience framework to engage and consider all factors relating to water management in a holistic approach to drive resilience across the region.
The free event is open to businesses of all sizes from Hull and the surrounding area and begins with a networking lunch, from 12.30 onwards. It will also include a walking tour of the Aura Innovation Centre site to enable those attending to understand how sustainable drainage systems work.
To book a free place or for more information, visit www.floodinnovation.co.uk/events/greening-our-city/.
Humber Business week runs from Monday 6 to Friday 10 June. For more information about the programme, visit www.humberbusinessweek.co.uk. Also taking place on Wednesday 8 June, before the Greening Our City event, the team at the University of Hull’s Aura Innovation Centre are hosting an event entitled ‘Climate Change? It’s Not My Business’, which will walk people through the first stages of adapting to the challenges of the changing climate and becoming a resilient green business.