Flood area victims to get £8m in grants
MORE THAN 2,000 people and businesses hit by the Boxing Day 2015 floods in Calderdale have been helped to protect their properties with grants totalling more than £8 million.
Reporting to Calderdale Flood Recovery and Resilience Programme Board, which met at the Shay Stadium, Halifax, the Community Resilience Operational Group said the flood grant programme for households had seen £6.06m awarded in flood grants.
Having received more than 1,600 applications, resilience work had now been fully completed on 1,347 homes with an average grant of £4,500 per property.
Completed at end of March, the scheme is considered to have been highly successful.
In terms of businesses, 588 grants, totalling £2,651,706.04, have been paid and, having received 669 applications in total, all funding was now paid out with final administartion work to be completed followed by an evaluation report on how successful it has been later this year with a target date of September 30.
This will include lessons learned and recommendations for the future, said author of the report, Environment Agency flood warden Katie Kimber.
The community resilience team also administers business enhancement grants which aim to assist flooded businesses who have plans for expansion and growth and are funded through the council’s £3m Flood Recovery fund.
Fifty applications have been received with 25 approved totalling £218,483, of which £132,483 has been paid out so far and there will be an evaluation report produced once the scheme is closed in 2019.