TEAM2100 – Long-term Public Consultation on Tidal Flood Defences
TEAM2100 is the UK Environment Agency’s 10-year program to refurbish and replace tidal flood defences in London and the Thames estuary. TEAM2100 aims to improve tidal flood defences in London, Kent and Essex from 2015 to 2025 (investment up to £300m). Long term public consultation for the program was pivotal for success.
The first part of the Thames Estuary 2100 Plan consists of the detailed engineering and structural investigations into the condition of tidal flood defences in London and the Thames estuary, which sets out how to manage tidal flood risk in the Thames estuary throughout the 21st century. The defences include the Thames Barrier and 350 kilometres of flood walls and embankments, smaller barriers, pumping stations and flood gates. This system of defences protects 1.25 million people and £200 billion worth of property.
The Thames Barrier. Photo credit: CH2M
For TEAM2100, the Environment Agency has formed an integrated team with engineering and program management firm CH2MHill, construction partner Balfour Beatty and other specialist contractors.
Gundog carrying out repairs to the Thames Barrier on behalf of TEAM 2100. Photo credit: CPBS Marine Services
The team had been collecting stakeholder details and consultation data in excel spreadsheets which were not serving them well as the project team expanded and the range of data they had to collect and track expanded.
Darzin was implemented for TEAM2100 in 2016 to manage interactions with all stakeholders. All existing data from the spreadsheets were imported into Darzin. Each of the flood mitigation assets and its surrounding residents and other stakeholders are tracked and reported on. Various members of the technical teams have been inputting data into Darzin and creating reports to support their design and repair works to ensure long term public consultation was viable.
Darzin provides a centre database for the wider team to easily track:
- what engagement activities have been undertaken
- who the stakeholders are and what the team members have spoken to them about
- communications with landowners in terms of maintaining flood defences
- stakeholder issues, concerns, successes and opportunities
- conditions of consents and related actions
Darzin also enables reporting from the team’s interactions with a single property to the consultation with stakeholders across the entire program.
Darzin plays an important part in TEAM2100 stakeholder engagement process. The team structure and members may change over the life of the program but the communications history is kept in Darzin for the entire 10 years. Long-term data storage enables sharing of stakeholder information and the team members’ learning seamlessly.