Funding For NBS
The WRIG and YRCT will be holding a NFM Funding Café event on the 12th March 2026 at Hilfield Friary. By way of preparation for this, we thought it would be helpful for any interested parties to provide a brief outline of some of the main funding streams which may be available to pay for Natural Flood Management (NFM) works as well as Nature Based Solutions (NBS) interventions more generally.
As always, this time of year is full of uncertainty as to which funding streams will be available in the new financial year and how much will be on offer. The goal of the Café is to inform stakeholders so they are fully prepared to exploit opportunities once the situation is clarified in April/May.
The main potential funding opportunities are:
- Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) – Dorset Council have confirmed that the scheme will run for the next 3 financial years. Applicants have to be located within the Dorset National Landscape Area.
- Wessex Water Nature Based Solutions Programme (focused on delivering interventions to reduce phosphates) – Applicants have to be located within the designated areas for the programme.
- New Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme/Countryside Stewardship (CS) schemes – fairly complex process and some payments may be relatively small. May constrain use of other funding and/or interventions that can be delivered.
- Environment Agency Funding – e.g. Water Environment Improvement Fund (WEIF) and Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) funding for NBS interventions – these are opportunities which may be available via WRIG/YRCT bids to the EA.
The amounts of funding available vary substantially but often there is opportunity to amalgamate funding from different pots as long as double funding is studiously avoided. One of the main barriers to applying for funding is a lack of time available to busy stakeholders who are unable to navigate an often complex process against a background of short application windows. WRIG/YRCT can prepare applications on behalf of stakeholders and act as intermediaries throughout the process, which hopefully makes life a lot simpler for landowners!
The café will provide information from a range of funding organisations to help clarify the offer, explain the application process and answer any questions you may have.
NFM Funding Café – 12/03/2026, Hilfield Friary, 19:00 – 21:00.
Winter 2025/26 Rainfall
After a very dry Spring, Summer and early Autumn period in 2025, the winter so far has done its very best to make up for the shortfall! This is the third wetter than “average” winter since 2023/24. For context, the winters of 2023/24 and 2024/25 produced 479.6mm and 318.4mm respectively. Between November 1st 2025 and February 9th 2026*, we have recorded 577.4mm. That is twice the average for the same four month period recorded at Yeovilton of 280.17 mm based on data for 1991-2020. (Figures within brackets in blue below are the monthly averages from the Yeovilton data set)
Totals for individual months are:
November – 114.4mm (81.87)
December – 155.2mm (77.40)
January – 250.4mm (70.03)
February – 57.4mm (with 19 days remaining) (50.87)
(*Please note that this four month period does not follow the exact meteorological winter period defined by the Met Office as December – February. Figures based on observations at Lorne Thomson’s site in Yeovil).
With such a prolonged wet spell leading up to the very wet January, extensive flooding was only to be expected. This highlights the need for many more NFM/NBS interventions to be delivered at catchment scale and in high densities to help mitigate flooding. The WRIG has an ongoing investigation and delivery plan to help deliver these interventions and we always welcome new landowners who wish to help mitigate flooding by accommodating these interventions where viable.
If anyone maintains rainfall records and would be happy to share this data with us on a regular basis, please do contact us. The more sites we have across the Wriggle and Beer Hackett Catchments with rainfall data available, the more accurate our calculations and interventions become.
If you would like more information or would like to participate in the project, please do get in touch with the WRIG via the Yeovil Rivers Community Trust.
