Half a million pounds investment from Community Foundation for Calderdale

The Community Foundation for Calderdale who most recently raised £2.5m to support flood affected individuals, charitable organisations and businesses in Calderdale following the Boxing Day floods has today announced it will launch a saving scheme to help those affacted by flooding but not covered by FloodRE, with an investment of half a million pounds.

After flooding in 2012 which affected approximately 900 homes in the Calder Valley, insurance became difficult for businesses and homes to access, in many cases those who could get insurance reported extremely high excesses on the polices making them financial impossible for many.

When the Boxing Day floods hit Calderdale this past Christmas, many of the 2800 homes and 1500 business affected were uninsured for flooding, The Community Foundation for Calderdale found that 57% of the people they supported with emergency grants were uninsured.

On April 25th the Community Foundation for Calderdales Flood Save will launch, further protecting and supporting those not covered by the Governments FloodRE scheme, this includes businesses and homes built after 2009.

Members of the scheme will pay regularly into their individual credit union Flood Save account through monthly standing orders of £10, £25 or a maximum of £50. These savings will be held in individual accounts run by Calderdale Credit Union who are partners to on the project. Members’ savings will therefore be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Members’ savings will also be eligible for any dividends on savings paid to its members by the Credit Union (these have varied in recent years from 0% to 2.5%).

Half a million pounds investment from the Community Foundation will enable the scheme to offer 100% match on the first £1000 saved with Flood Save. The Community Foundation will work with donors and philanthropist to increase the half a million in turn increasing the number of people and business it can support.

The Community Foundation for Calderdale in partnership with Totally Locally will also be launching a resilience fund with a difference, WATERMARK has been taken on by businesses across Calderdale who want to support a legacy fund some of this money will go in to Flood Save, the idea is that the business sells one of its products or services as a WATERMARK product a percentage of the profit from this product goes to the fund. The Fund is managed by Community Foundation For Calderdale and is instantly available as grant aid for people and businesses in Calderdale in the event of flooding.

If all the businesses hit by the 2015 floods raised just £10 per week from their sales of Watermark goods (a low estimate), the fund would hit over £700,000 in 1 year. Multiply that by a few years of no floods, and a bit more input from other businesses, or some adding more than £10 per week, and the fund could easily hit £2 million. And that money would be there for our communities to access straight away in case of another flood. Literally ‘saving for a rainy day!’ It's all about businesses and community working together to look after each other.

For further info please contact Emma@cffc.co.uk