Flood Resilience Strategy: consultation
Feedback updated 13 Feb 2025
We asked
The Flood Resilience Strategy consultation ran between 20 May and 13 August 2024.
We asked for your views to help us develop the Flood Resilience Strategy. Part of Scotland’s National Adaptation Plan, the Strategy focuses on what Scotland needs to do to make our communities more flood resilient over the coming decades as our climate changes.
We sought your views on the key guiding principles and how actions centred on our people, places and processes can contribute to Scotland’s flood resilience.
The Scottish Government would like to thank everyone who took the time to provide a response to the consultation.
You said
A total of 198 responses to the consultation was received, with 87 from groups or organisations and 111 from individual members of the public.
There was broad support for the guiding principles and the need to think more holistically about all the things that can be done to make our places more flood resilient.
Responses supported going beyond thinking about flood protection as the only solution. You recognised that we can’t protect everywhere indefinitely and that all opportunities to reduce our flood exposure, and to lessen the impacts when it does happen, should be explored.
You shared your views on how our people can help us become more flood resilient.
- You would like to see genuine collaboration between communities and relevant authorities when flood resilience is being considered.
- You would like to see people being more involved in all stages of flood resilience planning for their places and communities being given a real voice in decision making.
- You also recognised that for this to come about, improved data, information and support for communities would be required.
You shared your views on how our places can help us become more flood resilient.
- You communicated the importance of taking a placemaking approach accompanied by a robust planning regime to ensure flood exposure is considered from the beginning, in terms of both where and how to build.
- You emphasised that we should be avoiding development in flood prone areas.
- You supported making space for water in rural and urban areas and communicated that we should be using our land more to help us reduce the impact of floods both through natural flood management and the use of blue and green infrastructure.
- You also supported the need for long-term transition planning for our most exposed communities where it may not be possible to maintain a level of flood resilience indefinitely.
You shared your views on how our processes can help us become more flood resilient. How we can make changes to the way we do things and the way we work together to enable us to create flood resilient places.
- You highlighted the need for processes to support community involvement. This included providing communities with the information, advice and support to enable them to become involved in flood resilience decision making for their places.
- You communicated the value of networking and of sharing experiences, best practice, innovative solutions and case studies and the need for a single online access point for information, guidance and technical support.
- You highlighted a need to improve efficiency, consistency and value in delivering flood actions and communicated that this could be delivered through a single, national service.
We did
A comprehensive, independent analysis of responses to this consultation was undertaken by Craigforth, a social research company. The report is now published on Gov.Scot. Where permission to publish has been provided, individual and organisational consultation responses are also available to view.
The responses to this consultation have directly informed policy development for the Flood Resilience Strategy for the three themes of People, Places and Processes including identifying six priority areas for action:
- Establishing a flood advisory service
- Involving and supporting communities
- Supporting a broader range of flood actions
- Improving land-use for flood mitigation
- Improving awareness and decision making through data
- Supporting long-term transition planning for communities at highest risk
The Scottish Government published the Flood Resilience Strategy in December 2024 informed by the findings of this consultation, a suite of impact assessments and the stakeholder engagement sessions carried out in 2023-24.
Published responses
View submitted responses where consent has been given to publish the response.
Overview
As part of Scotland’s National Adaptation Plan and our wider Just Transition commitments, the Scottish Government is developing a Flood Resilience Strategy which will focus on what we need to do to make our communities more flood resilient over the coming decades.
Scotland’s climate has changed significantly and will continue to change for decades to come. Our biggest climate challenge is adapting to our increased exposure to flooding and responding to the impacts this is having on our people, places and activities. We need to learn to live with and adapt to flooding in Scotland.
The Flood Resilience Strategy will set out what we need to do in the long term to create a flood resilient Scotland. Our consultation paper sets out the principles we think should guide the strategy and the three key themes of people, places, and processes. These have been developed following a series of workshops and engagement with communities, practitioners, and researchers in 2023.
Read the consultation paper. The consultation paper contains full background information for this consultation. You may find it useful to read or refer to while responding.
Useful information about responding to this consultation
As you complete your response, each page will provide the option to 'Save and come back later' at the bottom. This means you can save your progress and return to the consultation at any time before it closes. If you don't use this feature and leave the consultation midway through, your response will be lost.
Once you have submitted your response, you can enter your email address to get a pdf copy of your answers sent to you.
On the 'About You' page at the end of this consultation, organisations will have the opportunity to tell us more about their work and/or how their response was informed.
After the consultation has closed there will be a few months delay before any responses are published. This is because we must check any responses to be published abide by our Terms of Use.
A analysis report will usually be published some months after the consultation has closed. This report will summarise the findings based on all responses submitted. It will be published on the Scottish Government website and you may be notified about it if you choose to share your email address with us. You can also join our consulation mailing list where we regularly list newly published analysis reports (as well as new consultations).
Why your views matter
Your response to this consultation will help us develop the flood resilience strategy. We are seeking your views on the key guiding principles and the actions that we will take to improve our flood resilience in Scotland. To meet the challenge of climate change, action on flooding will need to involve many more people than it has in the past, so your input is vital to help develop a strategy that works for everyone.
What happens next
Once the consultation has closed in August, we will commission an independent analysis of the responses. The contractor will and produce a report that we will use to inform the drafting of the flood resilience strategy.
Interests
- Environment and Climate Change
- Main hub
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