An article in The Sunday Times this week exposed the fragility of the UK’s public flood defences with particular regard to the built environment. The Environment Agency predicts one in six properties in England may be at risk, however professional risk consultants pitch it at one in four. Such impending horrors are not an under-reported phenomenon, but how our population will fare however with rising water levels remains largely unanswered.

 
Indeed with an ageing population, how we protect and manage risk for those who are the most vulnerable in our society demands critical attention. Flooding, flu pandemics, power-cuts or heat-waves for example, all pose significant and specific challenges for older people. A report commissioned by Help the Aged in 2007 entitled ‘Vulnerability of Older People and Emergencies in the United Kingdom’ demonstrated just how woefully overlooked older people’s vulnerabilities were in local authority planning decisions for emergencies. With very limited information pertaining to planning management for older people in emergencies in the UK and at the start of the project no evidence of any local authority assessing older people’s vulnerabilities, it is a testament to the pioneering spirit of the author Tim Randall, a report was even possible.
 
Perhaps even more disturbing is the emerging concept of ‘resilience’ as a buzzword in the disaster management debate and the subsequent repercussions this has for older people. Resilience essentially means minimising damage, therefore with regard to flooding, an increasing onus will be on the owner/occupier to prepare and protect their homes from flooding. There is limited support from grants made available from the ‘Making Space for Water Strategy’ but currently only 714 properties out of the 5.2million at risk would benefit from this grant and age would not part of the eligibility criteria. Older people therefore will become increasingly vulnerable to flooding if they can not make the structural changes now being suggested to protect their homes. As Richard Girling in the Times wrote: “It becomes a question for every household for itself, sauve qui peut”. Older people therefore not only find themselves at a disadvantage with respect to risk reduction in floods, but also due to possible mobility problems, financial constraints and isolation they are arguably more at risk of actual harm when a flood strikes.
 
There are of course other sub-groups who will similarly be at risk and disadvantaged, including people with disabilities and children. The question for policy-makers therefore is how can we protect some of the most vulnerable in our society when the prevailing wind suggests it could be every man for himself?
 
Sally-Marie Bamford