Local Stakeholder Group (LSG) Briefing Note – Cumbria

Community resilience in Cumbria is highly contextualised and involves a complex mix of human capabilities, access to resources, and capacity to learn and adapt, which are specific to location and circumstance. Resources required to build resilience come from the civil protection sector (e.g. emergency services) as well as the wider social protection sector (e.g. health and well-being services). Community led-action also provides an important source of support (e.g. Flood Action Groups). The emBRACE research indicated that a strong sense of community belonging, social cohesion and the presence of a diverse range of social networking structures were crucial in building resilience in Cumbria.

Social networks, in particular, facilitated access to resources inside and outside of the local community as well as mutual learning and collaboration. The power of social networks cannot be underestimated, with well-connected community illustrating increased resilience. Therefore bringing together well connected individuals in a community group such as a Flood Action Group have been found to have significant benefits for the community; they provide a platform with which government bodies can engage and offers an organised and collective voice for the community to advocate for support and resources that are specific to them.

A major challenge remains, to ensure that any learning that has been acquired from risk management experience can be drawn upon for future disasters. Therefore, government agencies and institutions should recognise that community members have much to share in terms of knowledge and experience of dealing with natural hazards and build this into national policy and local emergency plans. However, this research confirmed that the resilience of communities often comes down to a few well-connected and motivated champions who have the tenacity to engage and lobby government institutions for change. More effort is required to tap into this valuable knowledge source. The recent austerity measures and cuts to services threaten this engagement process and are, therefore, limiting opportunities for innovation

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EU Project emBRACE: Local Stakeholder Group (LSG) Briefing Note – Cumbria, Understanding Community Capabilities in Building Community Disaster Resilience – Findings from the emBRACE North of England case study

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9RBeBGSyVgFc3hEb3A2blJUOU0/view?usp=sharing

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