About the funding support

The Government is offered financial support to help households, businesses and farmers recover from the flooding caused by Storm Henk between 2 and 12 January 2024.

The deadline for the following support has now passed:

• Community Recovery Grants
• Business Recovery Grants

Any outstanding applications in the system are being processed. If we need to ask you about your application, we will contact you within 10 working days.

After you have applied

Once you have submitted your application, you will receive an email confirming that your application is being considered. Applications will be assessed as quickly as possible. If we need to ask you about your application, we will contact you within 10 working days.

If your application is successful, we will aim to:

• Pay eligible Community Recovery and Business Recovery Grants within 10 working days from the date of application (subject to all necessary information being provided). Payment will be made to the account provided at the time of application.
• Process Council Tax and Business Rate relief and issue amended Council Tax and Business Rates bills to successful applicants as soon as possible.

If your application is not successful, you will be contacted within 10 working days from the date of application.

We will try to process payments as soon as we can within these timeframes but cannot give you any updates on your application while we are reviewing it.

Please do not contact us until the specified time period is over. If you need to contact us after the specified time period, please email generalenquiries@somerset.gov.uk and we will get back to you within 3 working days.

Council tax and business rate discounts for 2024/25

If you are unable to return to your house or business premises with three months of the Storm Henk flooding incident, it may be possible to request continued discounts on your council tax or business rates. Please use this link to provide an update on your situation and to request an extension on the discount.

Other funding available

Property Flood Resilience Repair Grant Scheme

The purpose of the Property Flood Resilience repair grant scheme is to assist home and business owners to improve the flood resilience of their individual properties when they repair them after a flood. The outcome from this funding should be that if flooding were to reoccur, damage levels would be considerably lower, and property owners and businesses could return to their properties much more quickly.

Up to £5,000 (including VAT) is available per property to make homes and businesses more flood resilient and to allow them to recover more quickly from future flooding.

The grant is available to improve the flood resilience of a property; it is not compensation for flood damage, nor is it to be used for speculative work. It is for improvements to a property to reduce future flood damage. Only fully completed works that improve the flood resilience of a property will be reimbursed.

Please complete the Expression of Interest Form to register your property and receive your unique reference number. Once your eligibility is confirmed by our team, you will receive further guidance on how to meet the grant requirements.

The deadline to submit an Expression of Interest is 30 May 2024. We will endeavour to respond to any Expressions of Interest within 10 working days.

Eligibility Criteria

Who can apply for the Property Flood Resilience Scheme?

The grant is available to residential and business owners where the habitable living or business area of the properties have been damaged by entry of flood water, necessitating drying out and/or repairs to the fabric of the building. Flooding in this instance does not include a flood from any part of a sewerage system, unless wholly or partly caused by an increase in the volume of rainwater (including snow and other precipitation) entering or otherwise affecting the system, or a flood caused by a burst water main (within the meaning given by Section 219 of the Water Industry Act 1991).

What will be required?

A property survey is required as part of the scheme to identify things such as where the flooding came from, and the best Property Flood Resilience measures to prevent or limit re-occurrence. A survey must be carried out by a suitably qualified independent surveyor. Up to £800 of the total grant money can be used to fund the cost of a survey. Any cost above £800 would need to be met by the property owner. For Property Flood Resilience purposes “suitably qualified” requires a contractor to have completed the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management Property Flood Resilience Industry Training.

Once the application is received, we will review and confirm its eligibility against the criteria set out by DEFRA.

Farming Recovery Fund

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) are administering a further grant titled the Farming Recovery Fund. This grant is for farmers affected by the flooding. Applications to this fund will be dealt with by DEFRA.