This 2025 UKRLG has been produced by the UK Adaptation Biodiversity & Climate Board, Chaired by John A. Lamb. Following the 2021 public of the ‘Lessons Learned from extreme weather’ Dr Hugh Deeming was asked to review sector progress. This work is relevant across all UK Highway Authorities.
Click here to access the report: UKRLG 2025 Emergency Preparedness, Recovery & Response
John has held Public Sector Directorships including Manchester City Council, Calderdale, Thurrock, Trafford, Buckinghamshire and Essex. Prior to that John led major engineering projects and operations at Heathrow and Stansted Airports.
As Chief Officer in Calderdale he witnessed first-hand the massive impact of the Boxing Day floods in 2015. Since then, he has championed the need to better understand Resilience and Response across the Civil Resilience community. With DfT he co led the influential 2021 Deeming report. A key element of this is world leading approaches to Rapid Impact Assessment which has won UK awards and Ministerial accolades.
John now Chairs the UK Adaptation, Biodiversity and Climate Board, part of UKRLG, ensuring a reach across 200+ Highway Authorities. John is also the UK representative to the World Disaster Management Committee of PIARC. A message is how to prepare for the worst day, rather than an average day, and alongside excellence in ‘winter’ maintenance to consider how the sector moves to multi hazard, 24/7 365 response.
Based in Bentham, N.Yorks, Hugh Deeming is a recognised specialist in civil protection and community resilience research, who from 2011 to 2015 was the scientific technical officer for the EU FP7 emBRACE project. Over the past ten years he has worked with the UK Cabinet Office, academic institutions and local resilience and third sectors, exploring and interpreting policy and practice needs related to building community disaster resilience.
In 2016 Hugh was commissioned to report on Cumbria Local Resilience partnership's response to and recovery from Storm Desmond and in 2017 he accepted the invitation to sit as a panel member on Lord Kerslake's review into the preparedness for and response to the Manchester Arena attack.
Hugh is a specialist in collaborating with hazard exposed and hazard affected communities, working to deliver civil protection, community resilience and disaster-risk reduction across the UK and Europe.
Ann Carruthers is Director of Environment and Transport for Leicestershire County Council responsible for all highways, transport, environment and waste services. She leads a team of 1,000 people operating a predominantly in-house delivery model. Prior to this Ann worked with local authorities across Scotland and England and also spent a number of years as National Travel Demand Manager with Transit New Zealand responsible for introducing sustainable transport options across New Zealand’s state highway system.
Ann is currently President of ADEPT (Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport), a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transport, Chair of Midlands Highway Alliance+ and a member of the Highways Sector Council.
Katy is an Applied Geohazard Scientist at the British Geological Survey (BGS) and vice-chair of the UK Natural Hazards Partnership. Her work focuses on advancing geological hazard science research, its use, and its communication. She collaborates with government agencies, infrastructure owners, and local authorities to provide actionable geoscientific data including wider themes of natural hazards, such as impact-based forecasting, multihazards, resilience planning and urban subsurface use. Recent research highlight activities include her role as a UK Climate Program Embedded Researcher with the City of London Corporation, integrating geohazard science into urban planning; helping to inform future policies and practices for geohazards in a changing climate; and co-organising knowledge exchange activities with international partners on emerging natural hazards.
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