Scotland is creating a new £5 million Community Flood Resilience Fund, with money due to start flowing in 2027. The funding is aimed at communities and councils rather than individual households, but it could support practical local measures that reduce flood risk and improve preparedness.
The Scottish Government announced the fund on 23 September 2026 as part of a wider £15 million package for flood prevention and resilience. Of the £5 million community fund, £1 million will be available for direct community applications and £4 million will go to local authorities applying with communities to deliver local flood resilience measures.
The government has not yet published the detailed application criteria or timetable, so households cannot apply for the fund now. The important point for people living in flood-prone areas is that community groups and councils will have a new route to fund local resilience work from 2027.
Read the Scottish Government announcement.
What the funding is for
The Community Flood Resilience Fund is one part of a broader programme intended to improve how Scotland prepares for and manages flooding over the next four years.
Alongside the £5 million community fund, the Scottish Government says £2.5 million will be available to local authorities to strengthen existing public assets and resilience infrastructure. A further £3 million is intended for projects that use nature-based approaches to reduce flood risk, such as planting and landscape design that can help manage rainfall and water flow.
Up to £1 million is also being set aside for coastal projects, including work to replenish sand dunes, while £500,000 will support communities recovering from recent flooding.
The funding sits alongside Scotland’s new National Flood Resilience Strategy Implementation Plan, published on the same day. The plan sets out 65 actions for government, public bodies, councils, communities and other organisations over the next four years.
Read the National Flood Resilience Strategy Implementation Plan.
Can households apply?
Not on the information published so far.
The Scottish Government says £1 million will be for direct community applications, while £4 million will be for local authorities applying with communities. That means the fund is designed around local groups and partnerships rather than individual household grants.
Detailed eligibility rules, application dates and the types of projects that will qualify have not yet been published. Those details will matter because they will determine whether existing community resilience groups, charities, residents’ groups or other local organisations can apply directly.
If you live somewhere with a history of flooding, it may be worth finding out whether there is already a community resilience group in your area or whether your council is involved in a local flood-risk plan. Ready Scotland encourages communities to organise locally as part of wider emergency preparedness.
Ready Scotland household and community preparedness guidance.
What households can do now
The new fund does not replace household-level flood preparation.
Ready Scotland advises people in areas at risk of flooding to check their local flood risk, consider insurance cover, make a flood plan and prepare a flood kit. SEPA also publishes flood-risk information and local flood management plans covering communities across Scotland.
The Scottish Government’s implementation plan says work is already under way on a behaviourally informed Household Flood Plan template intended to help people understand what to do if flooding is likely where they live.
For people with disabilities, medical needs or caring responsibilities, flood planning may also need to cover accessible evacuation, medicines, mobility equipment, backup power needs, pets or assistance animals, and how support would be maintained if roads or services were disrupted. Any household plan should reflect the people who actually live there rather than following a generic checklist.
Why this matters
Flood resilience is increasingly being treated as more than a matter of building large flood barriers. The new Scottish plan includes community preparedness, local infrastructure, nature-based measures and support for people recovering from flooding.
For households, the practical significance is that local flood resilience work may become easier to fund from 2027, particularly where residents, community groups and councils can identify a specific local problem and work together on a solution.
There is no application process to follow yet. The useful next step for flood-prone communities is to watch for the detailed fund guidance when it is published and, in the meantime, understand their existing local flood-risk arrangements and household plans.