RTC were involved with a flood resilience project in Cumbria which won the Environment Agency’s Project Excellence award for climate resilience.
The projects aim was to make three properties showcases for flood resilience, in order to demonstrate to homes and business owners what can be done to reduce the devastation that flooding can cause; an issue to many in the region.
The project, which was supported by North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC) and the Environment Agency, is the first of its kind in the country.
Botcherby Community Centre
RTC teamed up with Mary Dhonau OBE, flood resilience campaigner and original chair of the PCA’s Flood Protection Group who was spearheading the project.
Botcherby Community Centre in Carlisle was the first project to be showcased. The community centre was severely flooded on the 5th December, 2015, when Storm Desmond hit and it has never fully re-opened since the devastating floods. 
Flood resilience project
The aim was to make the kitchen of the community centre, flood resilient. RTC carried out specialist flood resilience measures using various products from Safeguard Europe Limited to provide long term benefits for the centre and the community as a whole. Our aim was to provide a system suitable for purpose, which would enable the centre to get back to normal as quickly as possible, should future flooding occur.
Mary Dhonau OBE was beyond delighted that the Cumbria flood resilience showcase project won the Project Excellence award for ‘climate resilience’ at the Environment Agencies annual conference.
Mary went on to say: “It was an extremely challenging project and I’m indebted to Andrew Bradshaw and his team at RTC for all the support and hard work they put into making a kitchen at Botcherby Community Centre resilient to future floods. They were a delight to work with”.
Andrew, co-founder and partner of RTC, who also project managed the flood resilience works, said: “It was a challenging project, but our highly qualified and experienced team were able to provide the solutions required. 
It was also very humbling and a privilege to be a part of helping to bring the community back together following those dreadful floods in 2015, in which the centre had never been fully reopened until our works were carried out”.
The project received a lot of media coverage, including visits from government ministers and politicians. RTC were also featured on BBC News.
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