Flood Risk Assessment in Leicestershire

A flood risk assessment in Leicestershire starts with the River Soar. It gathers the Wreake, the Sence and dozens of town brooks on its way north to the Trent, while the county's clay sends rain off the fields within hours. The Welland edges the south-east and the Swift drains Lutterworth towards the Avon, so the county feeds three different river basins. We prepare flood risk assessments, sequential and exception tests and surface water drainage strategies across Leicestershire, for planning applications, buyers, mortgage lenders and insurers.

That covers Loughborough, Shepshed, Quorn, Sileby, Syston and Birstall in Charnwood, Hinckley and the Bosworth villages, Market Harborough, Lutterworth, Great Glen and Broughton Astley in Harborough, Coalville, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Castle Donington and Kegworth in the north-west, Narborough, Littlethorpe, Whetstone and Countesthorpe in Blaby, and Oadby and Wigston, across the LE postcodes and DE74. The city of Leicester and the market town of Melton Mowbray each have a page of their own.

Storm Henk left 500 properties flooded across Leicestershire in January 2024, and six major rivers, the Soar among them, reached record levels.

Send us the address and a line on the plans: call 01293 214444 or email enquiries@unda.co.uk.

Flooding in Leicestershire since Storm Henk, and the record behind it

Flooding in Leicestershire is investigated by the county council, which publishes a Section 19 report whenever an event is serious enough. Its list now runs from single streets in 2012 to the countywide reports for January 2024, and it is the best guide to where a site has flooded before:

1. Easter 1998. The 2017 strategic flood risk assessment names this, with 1947, as one of the two most severe floods on record across the county.
2. Summer and autumn 2012. Storms in June, July and November led to the first run of reports: Bardon Road and Drome and Vercor Close in Coalville, Cothelstone Avenue in Loughborough, Sheepy Magna, Shenton and Bath Lane in Moira.
3. 2019 and 2020. Reports followed for Mountsorrel, Cossington, Bramcote Road, Stoney Stanton, Great Glen, Appleby Magna and Long Whatton, and in February 2020 the Wood Brook broke its banks at Holt Drive in Loughborough.
4. June and September 2023. Investigations into flooding in Oadby and Wigston and in Packington, where the Gilwiskaw Brook runs through the village.
5. 2 January 2024, Storm Henk. The worst event in the recent record. The council's Storm Henk report names Broughton Astley, Countesthorpe, Loughborough, Quorn, Syston and Whetstone as the hardest hit, with up to 170% of average rain in the three months before.
6. September 2024 and January 2025. Market Harborough town centre flooded on 21 September 2024, and Enderby, Narborough and Croft five days later; a further countywide report into 6 January 2025 is not due until 2027.

Every report is listed on the council's Section 19 investigations page, and we check it for the streets around every site. Live warnings for the county are on the Environment Agency's check for flooding page, and our live river levels map shows the Soar, Wreake and Welland gauges rising in real time.

Screen a Leicestershire or Leicester address

Enter a postcode below for river flood zones, surface water, reservoir extents and the nearest warning area; our flood risk map gives the same screening for any English address. The coral line follows the ceremonial county, which takes in the city of Leicester but not Rutland.

National mapping leaves out the small brooks that are not modelled, canal breaches and runoff from fields above a site. Our guides to flood zones and to every source of flooding explain what a screening can and cannot tell you.

Where the Soar, the Welland and the town brooks put Leicestershire sites at risk

The 2017 SFRA for Leicestershire and Leicester City, prepared by JBA Consulting, summarises each district in turn. For the towns and villages below it places the risk like this:

Leicestershire has two River Sences: one joins the Soar south of Leicester, the other runs west through Hinckley and Bosworth to the Anker. In the far north-west the Soar ends in the River Trent, whose warning areas cover Castle Donington, Hemington and Lockington. Charnwood Borough Council's Loughborough flood risk page lists which town brooks are main rivers, and our explainer on main rivers and ordinary watercourses sets out what that changes for a site.

Seven district councils and one county: who reads a flood risk assessment in Leicestershire?

Leicestershire still has two tiers of council. A district or borough council decides the application, Leicestershire County Council comments on its surface water as lead local flood authority, and the Environment Agency covers main rivers. Leicester City Council does both jobs for the city.

These councils, Leicester City Council and Rutland County Council remain the planning and flood authorities. A July 2026 decision to replace them with two unitary councils was paused by the Government on 7 September 2026 for a national review, as Hinckley and Bosworth's announcement explains, and the May 2027 elections will be held on the existing council boundaries.

The joint SFRA, the district studies and what national policy adds

Under chapter 18 of the August 2026 NPPF, policy F4 asks for an assessment in Flood Zones 2 and 3, on any site of a hectare or more, and on Flood Zone 1 land at risk from another source; F5 and F6 set the sequential and exception tests, covered in our guide to national flood policy. The Leicestershire evidence sits in layers:

• The joint study. The Leicestershire and Leicester City Level 1 SFRA of October 2017 was commissioned by all seven districts, the county and the city for the Strategic Growth Plan. It counts 16 flood alert areas and 59 flood warning areas, and names Market Harborough, Melton Mowbray, Great Glen, Burton Overy and Anstey as places that flood often.
• Newer district SFRAs. Several councils have since replaced its maps with their own: Hinckley and Bosworth in 2025, North West Leicestershire in June 2026, Charnwood and Blaby. An assessment uses the latest one for its district.
• Harborough's two policies. The adopted plan's Policy CC3 manages flood risk and CC4 asks for sustainable drainage; the submitted plan replaces them with DM07 and DM08, as its flood risk topic paper explains.
• Updated national mapping. Harborough's August 2025 addendum updated its Level 2 work for the Environment Agency's new national flood risk data, a reminder that older SFRA outlines may not match the current flood zones.
• The county strategy. The Local Flood Risk Management Strategy for Leicestershire, first published in 2015 and revised in 2024, sets how the county handles surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourses.

The joint SFRA was finished six years before Storm Henk, so the Section 19 reports can show flooding its maps do not. Our explainer on what an SFRA is for covers how far it can be relied on for a single plot.

Drainage strategy in Leicestershire: runoff from heavy clay

A drainage strategy in Leicestershire usually cannot count on soakaways. The 2017 SFRA notes that much of the county is underlain by clay, so catchments respond quickly to rain and runoff is high, while recorded groundwater flooding is rare. Most schemes therefore drop down the drainage hierarchy to a watercourse or a sewer at a controlled rate. The county council checks that case: it has been a statutory consultee on the surface water of every major application since April 2015.

• Test before assuming. Where sands or river gravels suggest infiltration might work, BRE 365 testing at the soakaway's depth settles it.
• The council's checklist. The lead local flood authority's guidance for developers links its checklist and the national technical standards, and offers pre-application advice by email.
• National standards. Policy F8 now expects schemes to meet the 2025 National Standards for sustainable drainage, on top of the county's own checks.
• Two sewer companies. Severn Trent serves most of the county and all of Leicester; Anglian Water serves parts of the east, including Market Harborough. Any sewer connection is agreed with whichever one owns the pipe.
• Ditches and brooks. Building in or beside an ordinary watercourse needs the county council's consent, separate from planning.

Our ground conditions and soakaway checker and drainage calculators give a first view before any testing. Research at Loughborough on sediment ponds shows what small storage features can do on a farmed catchment, and our note on LLFA objections covers the reasons a drainage case most often comes back.

Canals, reservoirs and the Trent Valley drains

Three canals cross the county. The Grand Union follows the Soar, the Ashby Canal runs through the west and the Grantham Canal crosses the Vale of Belvoir. The 2017 SFRA counts 26 overtopping records between 1969 and 2013, and Hinckley and Bosworth's section of the Ashby Canal has breached four times through failed culverts.

• Reservoirs. No recorded reservoir flood has reached property in the county, but failure mapping runs down the Soar, Wreake and Quorn Brook valleys from reservoirs such as Swithland, Cropston and Black Brook, and down the Welland and Avon from Eyebrook, Stanford and Welford.
• Drainage board. The Trent Valley Internal Drainage Board manages drains in the north of Melton Borough around Bottesford, and may want its own consent for discharges there.
• Defended places. Defences on the Soar, Wreake, Rothley Brook and Loughborough's brooks reduce how often those places flood but leave a residual risk if a wall is overtopped or a culvert blocks.

Our article on the Whitchurch canal breach shows why an assessment beside the Grand Union or Ashby Canal looks at the embankment as well as the river.

Flood risk assessment in Leicestershire: the right report for each kind of site

A flood risk assessment asks whether a site is safe, a sequential or exception test asks whether it should be built there, and a drainage strategy asks where the rain goes. Each one is set against the Leicestershire situation that most often calls for it:

• Every source at once. A plot in Loughborough can face the Soar, a culverted brook, the canal and street runoff together, and our flood risk assessment weighs each one and how they combine.
• For the district council. Whichever of the seven councils decides the scheme, a flood risk assessment for planning gives the case officer, the county council and the Environment Agency the flood zone, levels and safe access they look for.
• Buying in a flooded street. Henk flooded streets in Syston, Quorn and Countesthorpe, and a flood risk survey for property purchase explains what the record means for one particular house before exchange.
• Homes on the floodplain. New dwellings on Flood Zone 2 or 3 land beside the Soar at Narborough or the Welland at Market Harborough generally need a sequential and exception test against reasonably available sites elsewhere in the district.
• Foul and surface water together. A drainage strategy shows how both leave the site, from a barn in the Vale of Belvoir to a Coalville infill plot.
• Rain on the clay. Where soakaways fail, a surface water drainage strategy sets the storage, the discharge rate and the outfall that Leicestershire County Council checks.
• After the decision notice. If the district council's decision notice includes a drainage condition, discharge of drainage conditions prepares the details it asks for before work starts.
• Cover after a flood. Where a house in Broughton Astley or Whetstone flooded in 2024, a flood risk assessment for insurance gives an insurer evidence about the building itself.
• Levels the maps lack. Sites beside the Soar, the Wreake or the Welland can need flood levels the national maps do not give, and flood modelling supplies them.
• Leaving before the water. Where a site depends on a warning area such as the Soar at Kegworth or the Wreake at Syston, a flood warning and evacuation plan sets out when and how people leave.

Leicester, Melton Mowbray and the counties around Leicestershire

Two places in the county have pages of their own, and five neighbouring counties do too:

• The city. Leicester, where Leicester City Council is both planning and flood authority, with its own SFRA and local plan.
• The Wreake. Melton Mowbray, where the River Eye becomes the Wreake.
• East and south. Rutland beyond Eyebrook Reservoir, and Northamptonshire across the Welland.
• West and north. Warwickshire over Watling Street, Derbyshire to the north-west and Nottinghamshire to the north. Our areas page lists every place we cover.

Flood contacts across Leicestershire and Leicester

Where floodwater puts anyone in danger, call 999, and call 105 for a power cut. For warnings at any hour, ring Floodline on 0345 988 1188, or sign up for flood warnings for the Soar, Wreake and Welland by text, email or phone.

Owners of land beside a brook are usually riparian owners, responsible for letting water pass, as our guide to riparian rights explains. Flooding of a home or road can be reported to the county council through its report a flood page.

Leicestershire flood risk and planning: what people ask us

For a quote, or to talk through a Leicestershire site first, contact one of our experienced flood risk consultants on 01293 214444 or at enquiries@unda.co.uk. Every quote is a fixed fee. Our consultants are chartered, a senior consultant signs off each report, and Unda Consulting Limited is a CIWEM Business Partner.