Climate Resilient Housing Conference: South Yorkshire
Today, the team had the pleasure of sponsoring and attending the Climate Resilient Housing in South Yorkshire conference, hosted by Connected by Water in Sheffield.
Bringing together professionals from across housing, flood risk, insurance and policy, the event created a valuable space for open, cross-sector discussion on one of the most pressing challenges facing the built environment today: how we build and adapt homes to be more resilient to flooding and climate change.
A strong and timely conversation
The quality of the discussion throughout the day reflected both the scale of the challenge and the growing momentum behind addressing it.
We heard from an inspiring line-up of speakers, including Professor Peter Bonfield, Professor John Curtin, Professor Roger Falconer, and Mary Long-Dhonau OBE, alongside leading voices from organisations such as Flood Re, Aviva, CIWEM and IPFRA.
Across the sessions, several key themes emerged:
The importance of embedding Property Flood Resilience into both new build and existing housing
The need for greater collaboration between sectors to deliver consistent, high-quality outcomes
The growing role of data, standards and guidance in shaping decision-making
The importance of considering not just resistance, but preparedness and recoverability.
More than presentations
What stood out most was not just the speaker content, but the level of engagement in the room.
The questions raised throughout the sessions demonstrated a real appetite to move beyond theory and into practical delivery. Interactive workshop discussions and informal conversations between sessions reinforced how valuable it is to bring together professionals from different disciplines, each with their own perspective on the same challenge.
From local authorities and housing providers to insurers and technical specialists, the event created a genuinely collaborative environment.
Why events like this matter
At Watertight, we see first-hand how important it is to translate strategy into delivery, ensuring that resilience measures are not only specified correctly but installed, understood and maintained over time - with consumer awareness and preparedness sitting at the very heart of this process.
Events like this play an important role in bridging the gap between policy, design and implementation. They help with sharing best practice and ultimately support better outcomes for the communities living at risk of flooding.
A collective effort
Thank you to the organisers at Connected by Water for bringing together such a strong programme and facilitating important conversations.
