Flood Risk Assessment in Goole

A flood risk assessment in Goole starts from the fact that the town lies below the tide. Goole stands 2 to 4 m above Ordnance Datum where the River Ouse meets the Dutch River, the lower channel of the River Don, with the River Aire just to the north, and the ground is well below the level the Ouse reaches on a spring tide. We prepare flood risk assessments in Goole for planning, property purchase and insurance, along with sequential and exception tests and surface water drainage strategies, for sites from Old Goole and the docks to the estates off Rawcliffe Road.

Goole is the principal town of the south-west East Riding of Yorkshire and the home of what the Local Plan calls the country's largest inland port. Most addresses fall in the DN14 postcode district. The built-up area the Office for National Statistics draws for the town takes in Old Goole, south of the docks. Hook, up the Ouse to the north-east, and Airmyn, on the Aire to the north-west, are separate villages, though the council's Level 2 flood study covers both with the town and part of Airmyn parish lies inside the Local Plan's development limit for Goole. Rawcliffe Bridge and Howden are a few miles away.

The council's Level 2 flood study found that if the banks or dock gates ever failed, most of Goole would flood two to four metres deep, much of it within half an hour. That is why the adopted Local Plan allocates no new housing sites in the town.

To discuss a Goole site with one of our flood risk consultants, call 01293 214444 or email enquiries@unda.co.uk. Reports for sites in Goole come from Unda Consulting Limited, a CIWEM Business Partner.

Two to four metres if the banks fail: the defences Goole depends on

Goole is kept dry by raised defences on three sides. Flood walls and embankments line the right bank of the Ouse past the town, built to a 0.5% annual exceedance probability (1 in 200 year) standard against river and tidal flooding, and both banks of the Dutch River carry defences to the same standard, guarding the docks and Old Goole. The Environment Agency runs most of them. The council's Level 2 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment for Goole, dated September 2020 and updated in July 2021, modelled what happens when they are exceeded or fail:

• Today's design flood. The defences hold a present-day 1% and 0.5% chance combined river and tidal flood. Banks at Old Goole overtop in a couple of places, with water generally less than 0.5 m deep.
• With climate change. Overtopping spreads to the Ouse north of the town near Westfield Lake, at Hook and by the port at the Don confluence, and to the left bank of the Don west of the railway. Water from the Aire and the Don reaches the industrial and trading estates on the west side, mostly west of the A614, and Old Goole sees depths of up to 2 m.
• A breach. Twelve breach locations were modelled. Nearly all of Goole floods, 2 to 4 m deep in the town and shallower in the docks, with depths and speeds that put lives at risk across the town.
• How fast it arrives. A large part of the town, Old Goole included, is under water within half an hour of a breach and the rest within an hour; farmland west of the town follows within two hours.
• A reservoir upstream. Failure of Kellington Ings reservoir, also called Hensall Ings, could reach most of Goole apart from the docks and Old Goole.

The study rates a breach as unlikely because the Humber Strategy and the Ouse catchment plan intend to keep the banks in good order, but it points out that neither is a commitment, so each site assessment has to look at the defence standard over the building's lifetime and the residual risk behind it. In October 2025 the Environment Agency began a £17 million project strengthening about 10 km of the Dutch River's northern bank, with a greenway along the top, which it says protects about 10,000 properties in Goole and nearby villages. The work lowers the chance of a breach. It does not move any site out of the flood zone, as our article on why defended land stays in a flood zone explains.

Check a Goole address, from Old Goole to the Rawcliffe Road estates

Enter a postcode in the map to screen a Goole address for river, sea, surface water and reservoir flooding from Environment Agency data, or open our flood risk map to look across the flood zones of the East Riding and the Humber. The planning map leaves the defences out, so almost every Goole result comes back in the highest zone. Treat the screening as the starting point; a site report says what that zone means for the building.

The Ouse gauge at Goole and the town's five warning areas

The Environment Agency reads the tidal Ouse at its Goole station. It publishes 4.83 m as the level above which property flooding is possible and 5.20 m for flooding of low-lying land, when alerts may go out; the highest level recorded there is 6.04 m. Warnings for the town and its edges are issued in these areas:

Our live river levels map shows the Goole reading beside the Ouse at Blacktoft, the Aire at Airmyn and the Don at Fishlake. The rivers above the town have pages of their own: the River Don from the Peak District to the Dutch River, and the River Aire from Malham to Airmyn.

When the pumps fell behind: Goole's floods of 2011, 2012 and 2013

Goole's worst recent flooding came from rain the drains could not move, not from the river. The town's old combined sewers were built oversized to hold sewage and rainwater under the streets until the tide went out; since the mid-20th century pumping stations at Carr Lane and Lock Hill have lifted the flow into the Ouse whatever the tide. The council's Section 19 investigations, summarised in the Level 2 study, record what happened when that system was overwhelmed:

1. June 2007. No investigation covers Goole, but the 2012 report puts the 2007 rainfall beyond a 1% annual chance event.
2. 3 August 2011. A short, very intense storm, rated at somewhere between 1 in 45 and 1 in 950 years. Sewers surcharged, Carr Lane's full pumping capacity was not available, and the council's postal survey found more than 600 properties flooded inside and 915 more with water in their grounds.
3. 5 and 6 July 2012. About 40 properties flooded inside at Westbourne Grove, about 20 at Millennium Way and Maple Drive, 12 at Elsie Street and Jacksonville and several at Attlee Drive, after storm pumps failed at Carr Lane. Yorkshire Water brought in emergency pumps and discharged into the drainage board's drains to the north.
4. 5 December 2013. The North Sea surge flooded about 300 properties across the East Riding. Old Goole was affected; the rest of Goole stayed dry.

Since then there have been schemes at Elsie Street and Jacksonville, Grange Road, Westbourne Grove and Parklands, and Yorkshire Water had a scheme for the Attlee Drive area under construction in 2018; the Sandhill detention tank at Millennium Way and Maple Drive dates from 2009. The surface water map still shows risk to roads and homes across the town, so how a new building connects to the public sewers and pumping stations is one of the first questions the drainage review asks.

How the Level 2 study ranks Goole's land, from the bank outwards

With nearly all of Goole in Flood Zone 3a, the national zones cannot tell one site from another, so the study divides the town into regions and ranks them. The council's sequential test guidance tells applicants to use this order in Goole instead of the district-wide one:

The regions are a layer on the council's Flood Data Map. Where a site falls in two, the layout puts the more vulnerable uses in the lower-hazard part, and the sequential test is judged on this ranking, not the flood zone alone.

What will East Riding ask of a flood risk assessment in Goole?

East Riding of Yorkshire Council is both the planning authority and the lead local flood authority for Goole, so one council decides an application and comments on its drainage. Its Local Plan Update, adopted on 2 April 2025, is the starting point, read with the guidance below:

For new homes the exception test is almost always needed: windfall sites need both tests, and a site that passes the sequential test still faces significant design and safety hurdles, as the council's guidance warns. The plan also records that meeting the study's standards may be hard to pay for in a town with low development margins, which is a good reason to test a site's layout early.

Floors above the flood, a refuge indoors: the standards for new homes

Table 6-2 of the Level 2 study sets minimum standards for development across the study area. For homes in the overtopping and breach regions, the ones that shape a scheme are these:

• Bedrooms above the water. Sleeping areas set above the greatest modelled flood depth, plus 300 mm.
• Living rooms. Finished floors no lower than 600 mm below the greatest flood depth, with at least 600 mm of passive flood resistance above the floor, or 300 mm and 300 mm where resilient construction is used instead.
• Nothing on one level. More vulnerable uses are not permitted in bungalows, single-storey buildings or self-contained ground-floor flats.
• No basements, caravans or park homes. None are permitted in any of the regions, and any ground raising has to be shown not to push water or hazard onto neighbours.
• A place of safety. Leaving the site during a flood is unlikely to be possible, so every building needs a place of safety reached from inside. The table sets it at or above 7 m AOD, and within the development 300 mm above the greatest flood depth.
• Walls that hold. Where water outside could stand more than 600 mm higher than inside, a structural report must show the building copes.
• Clear strips beside drains. A 9 m strip along drainage board and ordinary watercourses, 6 m in the Thorntree board's area, kept free of buildings and planting.

These rules have to be settled before the drawings go in: floor levels, stair positions and the refuge are part of the layout. Levels are given in metres above Ordnance Datum, and a floodable void under the ground floor is one way a scheme can lift living space clear. Board consents and byelaws are explained in our guide to internal drainage boards and planning.

The port, Junction 36 and Rawcliffe Road: where Goole is still building

With no new housing allocations, development in Goole comes from permissions already granted, windfall sites and employment land tied to the port and the M62. The Local Plan names these:

• Land north of Rawcliffe Road. Outline permission for 800 homes, with the first 200 under construction when the plan was written; the plan's main area for new housing in the town.
• Junction 36 of the M62. A Key Employment Site on the western edge, where the plan points to Siemens Mobility's 67-acre rail manufacturing plant.
• The Goole Freeport tax site. About 200 ha either side of Junction 36, which the plan says needs comprehensive planning before proposals can be supported.
• The docks. The Operational Port Area is safeguarded for port use, and new homes near it have to deal with the port's noise and activity.
• Windfall homes and conversions. Accepted only once both tests are passed. Turning a house into flats is a change of use with extra dwellings, which the study's rules treat strictly, as our note on converting a house into flats explains.

Junction 36 and the Freeport land sit just outside the built-up area on the map, on the western side where the study expects overtopping of the Aire and Don banks to reach the industrial and trading estates as the climate changes.

Matching a Goole proposal to the right report

Every planning application in the overtopping and breach regions needs a site-specific assessment, and the Level 2 study asks for a detailed one even for minor development and changes of use. As a guide:

Our page on the flood evidence a planning application needs sets out what goes to the council, and for householders our guide to building a house extension in a flood zone covers the smaller cases.

Reports for sites behind Goole's banks and pumps

A bungalow in Old Goole, a flat conversion in the town centre and a warehouse at Junction 36 each need something different. Our chartered consultants prepare every report, and a senior consultant checks and signs it off.

• Applications in the overtopping and breach regions. Homes, conversions and commercial schemes need a flood risk assessment for planning that answers ENV6 and the Level 2 study's Table 6-2.
• Tide, rivers, drains and ground together. A flood risk assessment for a Goole site weighs the Ouse, the Dutch River, the Aire, surface water, groundwater and the sewers in one report.
• A house before exchange. Before buying in Old Goole or on one of the streets that flooded in 2012, a flood risk survey for property purchase shows the buyer and lender the risk to that address.
• New homes in a town with no allocations. Windfall housing needs the sequential and exception test run within Goole against the study's ranking of regions.
• Drainage for major schemes. The council reviews drainage on major Goole applications, and our drainage strategy work answers ENV6's runoff limits.
• Runoff into pumped sewers. A surface water drainage strategy sets the discharge rate and storage, cutting brownfield runoff by at least 30% in a town whose rainwater is pumped into the Ouse.
• Conditions on an East Riding permission. Where a drainage condition is attached, the discharge of drainage conditions supplies the layout, calculations and maintenance plan the council asks for.
• Sites close to the banks. Where a site lies near the Ouse or Dutch River banks, or between the study's modelled breach points, flood modelling tests the depth and speed of onset at that site, as the study says may be needed.
• Getting people to safety. With little warning after a breach, a flood warning and evacuation plan sets out the place of safety, who goes there and when, for homes and businesses from Old Goole to the Rawcliffe Road estates.
• Land and premises by the docks. Before acquiring a dock-side unit or land near Junction 36, flood risk due diligence shows a buyer or lender the defended and residual risk.
• Keeping a port business running. For firms in the River Ouse at Goole Docks warning area, a business continuity flood risk assessment plans for a surge warning or a pump failure.
• Homes that flooded in 2011 or 2012. For a house at Westbourne Grove or Elsie Street, a flood risk assessment for insurance gives the insurer evidence about that one property.
• Sewers already under strain. A foul drainage strategy shows the Goole network and the Carr Lane and Lock Hill pumping stations can take a new scheme's flows.
• Testing a windfall site. Before an offer on land in Goole, a flood risk feasibility study checks which region it sits in and whether Table 6-2 leaves a workable layout.

Pumps, banks and warnings: who handles flooding in Goole

Ring 999 if water threatens life in Goole, and 105 if the power goes off. The rest of the work is split between these bodies:

The council's Local Flood Risk Management Strategy runs to 2027 and beyond, and the Environment Agency's Humber 2100+ evidence, published in July 2026, names Goole with Hull and Grimsby as urban centres at tidal risk. Hull lies down the estuary, Scunthorpe beyond the Trent to the south-east, Doncaster up the Don and York up the Ouse. The River Trent page follows the river that joins the Ouse at Trent Falls, below Goole. For the wider county see Yorkshire, and the rest of the places we cover are listed under areas we cover.

Questions from Goole buyers, landlords and developers

To talk about a house in Old Goole, a conversion near Boothferry Road or a unit by the docks, call 01293 214444 or email enquiries@unda.co.uk.