Building Resilience Naturally: Stronger Shores Celebrated at Flood & Coast Awards 2025

The Stronger Shores project was recognised at the 2025 Flood and Coast Excellence Awards in early June, taking home the Working with Nature Award.

Our project focuses on enhancing coastal resilience through nature-based solutions, and was also highly commended in the Community Action category, highlighting our strong engagement with local communities.

In addition, Emily Ross, Project Delivery Officer, received a Highly Commended mention in the Early Career Professional Award, acknowledging her outstanding contributions to early career professionals in flood and coastal risk management sector.

The team paid tribute to former Delivery Manager Karen Daglish, whose leadership during the delivery phase was instrumental to the project’s success.

The awards celebrate innovation and excellence in flood and coastal risk management across the UK. Stronger Shores’ recognition underscores the growing importance of working with natural systems to protect and enhance coastal environments.

We are thrilled to receive recognition for our passion, hard work and collaboration as the Stronger Shores Team and thank all of our wonderful delivery partners:

• South Tyneside Council
• Newcastle University
• University of Plymouth
• The Wild Oysters Project
• Tees Rivers Trust
• North Sea Wildlife Trust

Congratulations to all of our colleagues in the sector who were also shortlisted or winners. We did the Flood and Coastal Innovation Programme proud.

Stronger Shores is funded by Defra as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programme which is managed by the Environment Agency to develop and test new approaches to help communities become more resilient to the effects of flooding and climate change.