Flood Risk Assessment in Doncaster

The River Don shapes almost every flood risk assessment in Doncaster. It passes the town centre at Marshgate and North Bridge between raised banks, and on 8 November 2019 it rose to 6.31 m on the Environment Agency's Doncaster gauge, the highest reading on record there. We prepare flood risk assessments in Doncaster for planning applications, house purchases, mortgages and insurance, alongside sequential and exception tests and surface water drainage strategies.

Doncaster here means the town as the Office for National Statistics maps its built-up area: the town centre and Hyde Park, Hexthorpe and Balby to the south-west, Belle Vue, Intake, Wheatley and Clay Lane to the east, and Bessacarr towards Potteric Carr, across the DN1, DN2 and DN4 postcode districts. The council's own Main Urban Area reaches further, taking in Bentley on the far bank of the Don, Scawthorpe, Cantley, Kirk Sandall and Warmsworth. Those places share the town's council, Local Plan and flood evidence, but they fall outside the outline on our map.

In the part of Doncaster that flooded in 1947 and 2007, the council's flood study keeps an Environment Agency rule that new floors sit above the recorded flood level and never lower than 5 m AOD.

Questions about a site in Doncaster can go straight to our flood risk consultants on 01293 214444 or enquiries@unda.co.uk.

The Don at North Bridge and the November 2019 record

By the time it reaches Doncaster the Don carries everything that has fallen on Sheffield and Rotherham, and the Dearne joins it near Conisbrough. Through the town it runs past Hexthorpe, the railway station and Marshgate to North Bridge, with Bentley on the opposite bank, then on past Wheatley Park towards Long Sandall. Raised banks and walls hold it in. Along the river through Doncaster, the council's 2019 flood investigation also notes several large flood storage areas, land set aside to take water when the channel is full.

• A record on the town gauge. The River Don gauge at Doncaster normally reads between 0.21 m and 3.60 m. It peaked at 6.31 m on 8 November 2019, and the Environment Agency expects property flooding once it passes 5.65 m.
• The biggest flow in 43 years of records. The council's Section 19 investigation put that day's flow on the Don at Doncaster at an estimated return period of 150 to 250 years. Between 51 mm and 88 mm of rain had fallen in 24 hours on 7 November, after an autumn with more than double the usual rainfall.
• The water crossed to Bentley. The bank was overtopped at Willow Bridge for about 11 hours. Water passed under the railway into Bentley, flooding homes from Riviera Parade and Hunt Lane through to Frank Road, and the Bentley Flood Corridor filled.
• Two warning areas in the town. The Environment Agency's River Don at Doncaster area runs from North Bridge to Long Sandall and takes in parts of Wheatley and Wheatley Park; its River Don at Marshgate Retail Park, Crimpsall area covers North Bridge Lane, Marshgate and Cherry Lane.
• Repairs under way. The Environment Agency's programme for April 2025 to March 2026 included refurbishing the St Marys Bridge wall and the Wheatley Park embankment, and a flood risk management scheme for Intake, according to the council's 2026 flood study.

Current readings on the Don, the Ea Beck and the drains around Bentley Ings are on our live river levels map. The river from the Peak District to the Yorkshire Ouse is covered on our River Don page, and Sheffield, upstream, has its own page on the floods the same river brought in June 2007.

Look up a postcode from Hexthorpe to Bessacarr

Type a Doncaster postcode into the map below to screen it against Environment Agency data for rivers, surface water and reservoirs, or open our full flood risk map for anywhere in England. It gives a first look at the flood map for one address. The coral outline is the ONS built-up area. Its northern edge follows the Don at Marshgate and North Bridge, leaving Bentley and Town End on the far bank just outside, with Sprotbrough, Cantley and Armthorpe further out. Flood zones on the planning map ignore the Don banks, so a street behind them can show Flood Zone 3 there and low risk on a map that counts the defences.

Rain, sewers and the watershed under the town centre

Away from the river banks, most of the flooding recorded inside Doncaster has come from rain the drains could not carry, often while a high Don stopped smaller channels from emptying. The town also straddles a watershed: the council's 2019 investigation draws the boundary between the Don and Torne catchments through the centre of Doncaster, so ground to the south of it drains towards the Torne and the Trent rather than the Don.

Doncaster East Internal Drainage Board was formed in April 2012 by merging seven older boards, among them Potteric Carr, Armthorpe and Finningley, under a 2012 order, so its district reaches the southern and eastern edge of the town. Where a site drains to a board watercourse, the Shire Group of drainage boards needs the board's consent for work within 9 m of the bank and limits any discharge to the greenfield runoff rate. That consent is separate from planning permission. Our guide to internal drainage boards explains how the boards sit alongside the council.

Flooding in Doncaster on record, from 1947 to the 2026 flood study

Two things the council asks of developers today come straight from this record: the minimum floor level in the old flood area, and a close look at small drains as well as the river.

1. Spring 1947. The Don flooded, one of the two events the council's flood study singles out on this river, and the Bentley Flood Corridor operated. The ground covered then and in 2007 forms the study's "1947 and 2007 historical flood area", where floors must clear the recorded flood level. Our article on the 1947 floods tells the national story.
2. June 2007. Rain across South Yorkshire flooded 48 areas of the borough and 3,286 households, mainly from surface water (2026 SFRA); the study names Toll Bar, north of the town, among the places flooded. The Pitt Review followed that summer.
3. 31 July 2019. A flash storm flooded four homes in Intake, on Westminster Crescent and Queensbury Road, and the council logged it among its Section 19 investigations for 2019 to 2020.
4. 7 to 10 November 2019. The Don set its record at the town gauge. Across the borough 773 properties were affected, according to the Section 19 figures quoted in the 2026 SFRA, with 173 in Fishlake alone. Inside the town the investigation logged 28 properties at Clay Lane and smaller numbers in Intake, Balby, Hexthorpe and Wheatley. Our explainer on Section 19 reports covers why some floods get this treatment.
5. February 2022. High flows on the Don at Conisbrough and Fishlake and on the Ea Beck at Norwood flooded four properties (2026 SFRA).
6. February 2026. The council published a new Level 1 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment by JBA Consulting, the first full update since 2015.

Several of these floods mixed sources. In 2019 a high Don left the drains and dikes of Clay Lane and Intake with nowhere to go, which is why a site near Dodge Dike or a pumped drain is assessed for the river and the rain together.

What the 2026 flood study changes for sites in Doncaster

The council's new Level 1 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment replaces the 2015 study. It works from the Environment Agency's Flood Map for Planning as issued in January 2026, adds an appendix of sequential test guidance, and keeps the Residual Flood Risk Zone that the Environment Agency drew for Doncaster in 2015. That zone matters most in the town, because it sets rules for land the defences normally keep dry. None of it appears on the national flood map.

• No new bungalows or basements. Neither is permitted anywhere in the Residual Flood Risk Zone, and where two of its areas overlap the higher floor level applies.
• The 1947 and 2007 flood area. Floors go above the recorded flood level and no lower than 5 m AOD.
• The Bentley Flood Corridor. This natural floodplain on the north bank operated in 1933 and 1947 and partly in 2007. Building there is limited to previously developed land, with no larger footprint and nothing that affects how the corridor works.
• Bentley Ings pumping station. Floors go above the modelled defended level for a 1% annual chance flood with climate change, with flood-resilient construction above the undefended level.
• Behind the Lower Don banks. Between Doncaster and Sykehouse, a site needs a breach analysis, stays out of the rapid inundation zone within 20 m of a defence, and raises floors 600 mm above existing ground.
• Basements across the town. Habitable basements are not allowed in Flood Zone 3 or where surface water risk is high or medium, and a basement dwelling in Flood Zone 2 has to pass the exception test.

Each zone is drawn on the council's SFRA map. An older map viewer and the 2015 report are still online, so check the date on anything you rely on. Our explainers on residual flood risk and basements in a flood zone go into the reasoning, and our SFRA guide covers how a Strategic Flood Risk Assessment feeds a site report.

Policies 56 and 57 and the Flood Risk SPD: the tests the council applies

The Doncaster Local Plan, adopted on 23 September 2021, holds the two policies a planning officer turns to first: Policy 57 on flood risk management and Policy 56 on drainage. The Flood Risk SPD, adopted in August 2023, explains how the council applies Policy 57.

Above the Local Plan sits chapter 18 of the NPPF, revised in August 2026: policy F4 governs when a Doncaster scheme needs an assessment, F5 and F6 hold the two tests, and F8 asks development to follow the 2025 National Standards for sustainable drainage. Our August 2026 NPPF briefing lists the flood and drainage changes in that revision.

The council has begun a new Doncaster Local Plan running to 2044. Formal preparation starts on 30 October 2026 and adoption is planned for 30 April 2029, so until then the 2021 plan decides applications. Drainage detail still comes from the South Yorkshire interim SuDS guidance of June 2015 and the council's own guidance for developers producing drainage strategies.

Waterfront, Marshgate or a Balby semi: when a flood risk assessment in Doncaster is needed

National policy asks for an assessment for any site in Flood Zone 2 or 3, for sites of 1 ha or more in Flood Zone 1, and for smaller Flood Zone 1 sites that face another source of flooding, and the council's SPD repeats those triggers. The table shows how common Doncaster schemes fall.

On the waterfront sites the sequential test is easy to overlook, because an allocated site looks as if it has already passed one. Paragraph 14.7 says otherwise for homes. Our explainer on the two tests sets out the national method behind both, and the short form for householder extensions is in the Environment Agency's standing advice.

Reports our consultants prepare for Doncaster sites, from the Waterfront to Bessacarr

Our consultants are chartered, Unda is a CIWEM Business Partner, and each report is checked and signed off by a senior consultant. The reports below answer different questions: whether a site is safe, whether it should be developed at all, and where its rainwater goes.

• Riverside and town-centre applications. Homes, offices or shops near the Don need a flood risk assessment for planning that answers Policy 57 and the 2026 residual zone rules.
• The river and everything else. A flood risk assessment for a Doncaster site weighs the Don against Dodge Dike, the town sewers, surface water flow routes and reservoir risk.
• Before you exchange. Buying in Hexthorpe, Balby or Wheatley, where the Don, the drains or both have reached homes before, a flood risk survey for property purchase looks at the building itself.
• Homes on windfall and mixed-use land. Housing in Flood Zone 2 or 3, the Policy 68 sites included, needs a sequential and exception test with a search across the Main Urban Area.
• Drainage at any scale. Policy 56 asks every development to deal with its drainage, so even a small Balby scheme needs drainage strategy evidence sized to it.
• A 30% cut on brownfield land. A surface water drainage strategy shows the reduction the council looks for, or no increase on a greenfield site, and tests infiltration first.
• Once permission is granted. Where a Doncaster consent comes with a drainage condition attached, discharge of drainage conditions supplies the details and maintenance plan the council signs off.
• Levels behind the Don banks. The SFRA asks for a breach analysis behind the Lower Don defences and floors above modelled defended levels near Bentley Ings, which can call for site-specific flood modelling.
• Warnings and a route out. Two Environment Agency warning areas cover the riverside from Marshgate to Long Sandall, and the SPD calls emergency plans essential for hotels and hostels: a flood warning and evacuation plan provides one.
• Cover after November 2019. Homes in Clay Lane, Intake and Wheatley flooded that month, and a flood risk assessment for insurance gives an insurer evidence about one property.
• New offices and business space. The Local Plan steers offices and business floorspace to the waterfront and town-centre sites, where a BREEAM flood risk assessment supports the Pol 03 credits.
• Buying land by the Don or the canal. Sites such as the former McCormick tractor works at Wheatley Hall Road are allocated for redevelopment, and flood risk due diligence sets out their flood and drainage position before a purchase.
• Keeping a shop or unit open. Marshgate Retail Park and Cherry Lane sit inside an Environment Agency flood warning area, and a business continuity flood risk assessment plans for the day the alert comes.
• Testing a site before an offer. The Local Plan says its Potential Development Sites generally failed the sequential test, so a flood risk feasibility study shows early whether a scheme on one can work.
• Foul capacity first. Policy 56 supports development only where foul sewage capacity exists or can be made available in time, which a foul drainage strategy demonstrates.
• A high water table. Policy 56 puts infiltration first, and the 2019 investigation rated Clay Lane and parts of Wheatley 25% to 50% susceptible to groundwater flooding; a groundwater flood risk assessment checks a soakaway will work.

Reporting flooding in Doncaster: the council, the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water

If floodwater threatens anyone in Doncaster, ring 999, and ring 105 if the power goes off. The organisations below handle everything else.

The council and its partners work together through Connected by Water, the South Yorkshire alliance formed after the 2019 floods, and the council's Local Flood Risk Management Strategy runs to 2029. For the wider region see our flood risk assessment in Yorkshire page; east of the borough, Scunthorpe sits across the Isle of Axholme. Every place we cover is listed on our areas hub.

Questions about flood reports for Doncaster sites

Unda Consulting Limited prepares flood risk assessments, sequential and exception tests and drainage strategies for sites across Doncaster, from waterfront schemes and house extensions to plots on the edge of Bessacarr. To talk about a site in Doncaster, Balby, Wheatley or Intake, call 01293 214444 or email enquiries@unda.co.uk.