Flood Risk Assessment in Hexham

A flood risk assessment in Hexham has to reckon with a town built where two rivers become one. The North Tyne and the South Tyne meet at Warden, just west of the town, to form the River Tyne proper, and Hexham sits on the resulting floodplain alongside the Skinnersburn, the culverted Cockshaw Burn and Devil's Water. We prepare flood risk assessments in Hexham for planning, property purchase, mortgage and insurance, and BREEAM, alongside sequential and exception tests and surface-water drainage strategies (SuDS), and we deal directly with the Environment Agency and Northumberland County Council on your behalf.

Development here ranges from infill and conversions around the historic centre to the industrial estates that sit hard against the riverbank at Bridge End and Tyne Mills, so the flood risk assessment a site needs depends heavily on exactly where it sits relative to the Tyne, its tributaries and the town's two flood defence schemes. Call 01293 214444 or email enquiries@unda.co.uk to talk a site through, or start a quote below.

Hexham Bridge was finished in 1770, and less than a year later it was swept away in the Great Flood of November 1771 — still the worst flood ever recorded on the Tyne.

• Main watercourses. The River Tyne, formed at Warden by the North Tyne and South Tyne, plus the Skinnersburn, the Cockshaw Burn and Devil's Water.
• Dominant risk. Fast-rising fluvial flooding from the Tyne and its burns, with surface water concentrated through the town centre.
• Flood defences. Two schemes: the Cockshaw Burn culverting of the mid-2000s and the £6.5 million Hexham Flood Alleviation Scheme, opened in September 2023.
• Lead Local Flood Authority. Northumberland County Council.
• Worst recorded event. The Great Flood of November 1771, which destroyed Hexham Bridge along with thirteen or fourteen other bridges on the Tyne.

Check flood risk anywhere in Hexham

The map below shows Hexham outlined in coral. Enter any postcode in the town to screen it against Environment Agency data for rivers and the sea, surface water, reservoirs and the planning flood zones, with a climate change outlook to 2125, alongside live flood warnings.

A history of flooding in Hexham

Hexham's flood record stretches back further than most towns on the Tyne, because the river's behaviour here has always been dramatic enough to write down. The Tyne can rise ten to twelve feet within an hour and fall almost as fast, and the valley has recorded around forty-five floods since 1771 — roughly one every five or six years.

• November 1771 — the Great Flood. A sudden thaw in upper Teesdale, a Pennine cloudburst and continuous rain sent the Tyne, Tees, Wear and Eden into simultaneous flood. Hexham Bridge, finished barely a year earlier, was one of thirteen or fourteen bridges destroyed on the North, South and main Tyne; twenty-five people died across the affected rivers.
• March 1782. Heavy snow followed by a violent storm inundated the valleys of the North and South Tyne, overturning the rebuilt bridge's arches and confirming the river's reputation for sudden, severe floods.
• 5 December 2015 — Storm Desmond. The Tyne and the Skinnersburn flooded the Bridge End and Tyne Mills industrial estates, affecting around 22 residential properties and 41 businesses; water reached depths of up to two feet at Bridge End, spilled onto the golf course and flowed through the Tyne Green underpass into houses and a caravan park.
• 28 June 2012. The Cockshaw Burn recorded its highest level on record at Hexham, a reminder that the town's smaller watercourses flood independently of the Tyne itself.

That history is why flood risk assessments are required for so much of the town, and why a report has to look well beyond the headline river to stand up to scrutiny from Northumberland County Council and the Environment Agency.

Flood risk in Hexham: the Tyne, the Skinnersburn, the Cockshaw Burn and Devil's Water

A flood risk assessment in Hexham has to treat several watercourses as genuinely separate sources of risk, because each behaves differently and reaches different parts of the town.

The River Tyne itself is formed only a short distance upstream, at Warden, where the North Tyne and South Tyne meet at a spot long known locally as the Meeting of the Waters. That confluence, plus the smaller catchments joining it in and around the town, is why national flood maps need careful local interpretation here rather than a single headline reading.

Flood defences protecting Hexham

Hexham has been the subject of two separate flood alleviation schemes, addressing two different parts of the town's flood risk.

• The Cockshaw Burn scheme. Completed in the mid-2000s, this culverted sections of the Cockshaw Burn and Halgut Burn to manage the surface water that had repeatedly affected the town centre, delivered by the Environment Agency in an unusually creative partnership with Arts Council England's Commissions North.
• The Hexham Flood Alleviation Scheme. Opened in September 2023 at a cost of £6.5 million (with a £5.7 million Government contribution), this added around 600 metres of new flood wall and grass embankment along the Tyne and the Skinnersburn, better protecting up to 90 properties at the Bridge End and Tyne Mills industrial estates. It was delivered by the Environment Agency with BAM and Arup, and included the UK's first trial of low-carbon concrete in permanent flood defence works.

Flood defences reduce risk, but they do not remove it. As we set out in our explainer on residual flood risk, a defence built to a given standard can still be overtopped by a larger event, and the Environment Agency's Flood Map for Planning is deliberately drawn as if defences were not there, so the residual risk behind them stays visible on the map. A flood risk assessment in Hexham for a site at Bridge End, Tyne Mills or elsewhere close to the river has to read and manage that residual risk, not treat the new defences as the end of the conversation.

Planning policy and your Lead Local Flood Authority in Hexham

Northumberland County Council is the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) for Hexham, responsible for surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourses, while the Environment Agency leads on the River Tyne as a main river.

• Local Flood Risk Management Strategy. Approved by the council in November 2015, this sets Northumberland's objectives and actions for managing local flood risk.
• Strategic Flood Risk Assessment. The evidence base the council uses to inform Local Plan policy and site allocations across the county.
• Hexham Neighbourhood Plan. Allocates twelve housing sites (plus a reserve site) around the town and requires flood risk, including the effects of climate change, to be considered in their design.
• North East Lead Local Flood Authorities' SuDS Standards (2020). The shared drainage standard Northumberland County Council expects new development to meet.

Development and flood risk assessment in Hexham

Hexham's development pattern splits fairly cleanly into two halves, and each brings its own flood risk assessment requirements.

• The historic centre. Georgian and older buildings around the Market Place and Abbey mean infill, conversions and changes of use are common, often on constrained plots where surface water and the culverted Cockshaw Burn need careful attention.
• Riverside industrial land. Bridge End and Tyne Mills sit directly against the Tyne and the Skinnersburn, so redevelopment or intensification there sits squarely behind the new flood defences and has to demonstrate the residual risk is properly managed.
• Neighbourhood Plan housing sites. The twelve allocated sites around the town vary from low to higher flood risk depending on their proximity to the Tyne, the Cockshaw catchment and Devil's Water, so each needs its own site-specific assessment rather than a single town-wide answer.
• Extensions and smaller schemes. Even modest projects in Flood Zone 1 can need a flood risk assessment or drainage strategy where the Flood Map for Planning shows surface water risk, which covers meaningful parts of Hexham's built-up area.

How Unda helps with flood risk assessment in Hexham

We bring the same approach to a site in Hexham that we bring anywhere in England and Wales: reading every source of flooding that could affect a site, not just the one the client asked about, and building a report that a busy planning officer or Environment Agency case handler can approve without a second round of questions. Since 2014 we have completed more than 5,000 flood risk assessments, and a Senior Flood Risk Consultant signs off every one.

Whatever brought you to a flood risk assessment in Hexham — a planning condition, a lender's request, an insurer's query or a BREEAM credit — our flood risk consultants will talk the site through with you before any work begins, so the report matches exactly what your project needs.

Flood risk assessments and related reports for every situation in Hexham

We prepare a full range of reports for sites in Hexham, each answering a different question.

• Flood risk assessment for planning. Supports a planning application by showing a development can proceed safely without increasing flood risk elsewhere.
• Flood risk survey for property purchase. An independent, site-specific check for homebuyers, solicitors and lenders during conveyancing.
• Flood risk assessment for insurance. Property-specific evidence for brokers and underwriters when premiums, cover or claims are in question.
• Flood risk assessment for BREEAM. Structured to support BREEAM Pol 03 flood and surface water management credits.
• Sequential and Exception Tests. A separate, locational report considering whether a development should be sited where it is proposed.
• Surface water drainage strategy (SuDS). Shows where surface water will go once a site is developed, and how it meets Northumberland's SuDS standards.
• Groundwater flood risk assessment. Specialist input for sites where the water table, rather than a nearby river, is the concern.
• Flood modelling. Detailed hydraulic modelling where mapping alone cannot give an accurate flood level for a Tyne-side or Devil's Water site.

A flood risk assessment, a sequential or exception test and a drainage strategy are three distinct reports. They often travel together in a planning submission for a Hexham site, but they answer different questions: is the site safe, should the development be here, and where does the surface water go. Where a site sits in Wales rather than England the equivalent report is a Flood Consequence Assessment; our NPPF flood risk guidance sets out how the English framework fits together, and discharge of drainage conditions and preliminary drainage design cover the detailed drainage stages either side of a strategy.

Two free screening tools are useful before commissioning a report: the Flood Risk Map for a first postcode check anywhere in England, and the Live River Levels Map to see how the Tyne, at Hexham's own gauge, currently compares with its typical range. Where a scheme depends on infiltration drainage, the Geology & Ground Conditions Checker, the Drainage Calculators and the BRE 365 Infiltration Rate Calculator give a fast, defensible first pass before a full drainage strategy is prepared.

Hexham flood risk management and emergency contacts

These are the bodies to contact for flood risk in Hexham, alongside Unda for a site-specific assessment.

You can check the River Tyne level at Hexham directly on the Environment Agency's live gauge network, and see how nearby rivers currently compare with their typical range on Unda's Live River Levels Map.

Flood risk assessment in Hexham: frequently asked questions