Flood Risk Assessment in Leicestershire

A flood risk assessment in Leicestershire is a site-specific report that shows a development is safe from flooding for its lifetime and will not push water onto anyone else. Unda prepare flood risk assessments in Leicestershire for planning, property purchase, mortgage and insurance, and BREEAM, alongside sequential and exception tests and surface-water drainage strategies (SuDS). We are not based in the county, but we know its rivers, its planning authorities and its flood history well, and we deal with the Environment Agency and Leicestershire County Council on your behalf.

Leicestershire is a county shaped by water. The River Soar runs its length from south to north before joining the Trent, gathering the Wreake, the Sence and a web of smaller brooks on the way, while the Eye, the Welland and the Mease drain the eastern and southern edges. That drainage network, combined with decades of building on or near floodplains, means flood risk is a live consideration for a great many sites here — and a flood risk assessment is how you answer it on paper to the standard the planners expect.

Get the flood risk right at the start and it rarely holds a Leicestershire scheme up. Leave it late and an Environment Agency or drainage objection can stall an application for months.

Flood risk assessment in Leicestershire at a glance

• The River Soar runs the length of the county. Its catchment upstream of Pillings Lock near Loughborough covers roughly 1,110 square kilometres, taking in the Wreake, so the main river peaks slowly and late while the smaller brooks flood first.
• 140 properties were flooded internally in Loughborough during Storm Henk, January 2024, with at least 30 more flooded externally — and a second major countywide event hit the same areas almost exactly a year later, in January 2025.
• Leicestershire County Council is your Lead Local Flood Authority. It leads on surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourses, while the Environment Agency leads on the main rivers. Most major schemes here have to satisfy both.

Check flood risk anywhere in Leicestershire

Leicestershire is outlined below. Screen any postcode in the county against Environment Agency data for rivers and sea, surface water and the planning flood zones, with a climate outlook to 2125. It is an indicative first pass, not a substitute for a site-specific assessment.

Flood risk in Leicestershire: rivers, surface water and the Soar catchment

Most of Leicestershire's mapped flood risk follows its rivers, but surface water — rainwater that overwhelms drains and runs across the ground before it reaches a watercourse — is now the most widespread source across the county, and the one that most often catches a Flood Zone 1 site by surprise. A thorough assessment looks at every source of flood risk: rivers, surface water, groundwater, sewers and reservoirs.

The River Soar is the dominant system. Upstream of Pillings Lock near Loughborough its catchment covers roughly 1,110 square kilometres, taking in the River Wreake, so the Soar tends to rise slowly and peak late — often many hours after the smaller brooks that feed it have already flooded. That lag matters: in Loughborough during Storm Henk in January 2024, the Soar at Pillings Lock peaked at an estimated 194 cubic metres a second around sixteen hours after the local Wood Brook had crested. The smaller, flashier watercourses flood first; the main river floods later and for longer.

Surface water is now the most widespread source of flood risk in England, and on a Flood Zone 1 site in Leicestershire it is the source most likely to trigger an assessment you did not expect to need.

• River Soar and the Grand Union Canal. The spine of the county, with risk concentrated through Birstall, Mountsorrel, Sileby, Cossington and Loughborough. River and canal interact, and a designed overflow links the two at Loughborough.
• River Wreake. Drains the vale to the north-east and joins the Soar near Syston; Melton Mowbray, Asfordby and the Wreake villages sit within its reach.
• River Eye. Runs through Melton Mowbray — the watercourse behind the town's long history of flooding.
• River Welland. Defines the southern boundary and runs through Market Harborough, where the Market Square and Euro Business Park sit in a flood warning area.
• Rivers Mease and Sence. Drain the south and west towards the Trent, relevant across Hinckley & Bosworth and North West Leicestershire.
• Town brooks. Wood Brook, Burleigh Brook and Black Brook around Loughborough, Rothley Brook in Charnwood and others — small, fast-responding and often culverted through town centres, where a blockage becomes a flood.

Groundwater is the quiet source. It rises from below as the water table climbs, appears on no national flood map, and can sit in the ground for weeks. Where the county is underlain by permeable deposits it undermines the soakaway assumptions a drainage strategy often leans on, which is why infiltration needs testing rather than assuming, and why groundwater is assessed as a source in its own right.

A history of flooding in Leicestershire

Leicestershire has flooded repeatedly and recently, and the dated record is the clearest evidence that risk here is real rather than theoretical. Several towns have flooded more than once in living memory, which is why the regulators scrutinise development near these watercourses so closely.

• January 2024 — Storm Henk. Around 140 properties flooded internally in Loughborough and at least 30 externally, the worst impacts along Staveley Court and Waterside Close as the Soar and its brooks overwhelmed defences. Sileby and Cossington were badly hit the same night. The county's flood investigation report sets out what happened.
• January 2025. Almost a year later, another major countywide event again caused widespread internal flooding in Loughborough and across the Soar and Wreake valleys.
• 2019–2020. A run of formal Section 19 flood investigations followed events around Loughborough (Windsor Road, Leicester Road, Mountsorrel) and elsewhere — a reminder that surface-water and watercourse flooding is not confined to the named storms.
• 2012. Torrential summer rainfall overwhelmed watercourses across the county, with the Soar and Wreake among the main contributors.
• Melton Mowbray, Easter 1998. The River Eye burst its banks and flooded 164 properties in roughly a 1-in-50-year event. Melton has flooded on average once every five to six years across its recorded history, which led to the Brentingby flood storage scheme upstream, protecting the town to a 1-in-100-year standard.

These dated events make residual flood risk — the risk that remains even after defences and drainage have done their job — a live issue that a credible assessment has to address head-on, not gloss over.

Loughborough

Loughborough is the largest town in the county and one of its most flood-prone, sitting where the fast Wood Brook, Burleigh Brook and Black Brook meet the slow, late-peaking River Soar. Several of those brooks are culverted through the town centre, and the river and Grand Union Canal interact. Development here almost always needs careful drainage design and, near the watercourses, a full assessment of how a flood would behave on site.

Melton Mowbray and the Wreake villages

Melton's flooding comes from the River Eye, with the Wreake adding risk downstream through Asfordby, Frisby and the villages towards Syston. The Brentingby scheme protects the town centre to a 1-in-100-year standard, but protection reduces probability rather than removing it, so sites here still have to demonstrate they are safe allowing for climate change.

Market Harborough and the south

Market Harborough sits on the River Welland on the Northamptonshire border, with the Market Square and Euro Business Park in a recognised flood warning area. Across the south of the county the Welland and the Sence drive the risk, and surface water is a growing concern on the area's clay soils, where rainfall runs off rather than soaking away.

Do you need a flood risk assessment in Leicestershire?

You generally need a flood risk assessment in Leicestershire if your site is in Flood Zone 2 or 3, if it is a hectare or more even in Flood Zone 1, if it is shown at surface-water risk on the Environment Agency's Flood Map for Planning, if it falls in a critical drainage area, or if a more vulnerable use is being introduced. If an assessment is required and you do not provide one, the planning authority can refuse permission or hold the application until you do.

Two authorities shape what that report has to show. The Environment Agency is the statutory consultee on flood risk from the main rivers — the Soar, Wreake, Eye, Welland, Mease, Sence and Trent — and it relies on the Flood Map for Planning, which shows the natural floodplain ignoring defences. That is why a defended town site can still sit in Flood Zone 3. Leicestershire County Council, as Lead Local Flood Authority, is the statutory consultee on surface-water drainage for major development — and it is here that many Leicestershire applications stand or fall.

On most major schemes here it is the surface-water drainage case, judged by the county council, that decides whether an application moves — not the river.

The county's flood policy framework is worth knowing before you fix a layout:

• Leicestershire Local Flood Risk Management Strategy. The county's strategy for managing local flood risk from surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourses, first published in 2015 and updated in 2024. It sets the direction the LLFA takes on new development.
• Strategic Flood Risk Assessment. The Leicestershire and Leicester City Level 1 SFRA, with district work behind it, maps flood risk across the area and is the first document a planning reviewer checks. Several districts — North West Leicestershire and Hinckley & Bosworth among them — have refreshed their SFRAs recently, which can pull Flood Zone 1 sites into scope through surface-water or ordinary-watercourse risk.
• District Local Plans. Leicestershire is a two-tier county, so your planning authority is the district or borough — Charnwood, North West Leicestershire, Hinckley & Bosworth, Blaby, Harborough, Oadby & Wigston or Melton — each with its own Local Plan flood and drainage policies on top of the national framework.
• Critical drainage areas. Where the SFRA or local policy designates a critical drainage area, even a Flood Zone 1 site can need an assessment and a stricter drainage approach.
• Sustainable drainage (SuDS). New development is expected to manage surface water sustainably and restrict runoff towards greenfield rates, following the drainage hierarchy and the 2025 national standards and the four pillars of SuDS. On Leicestershire's heavier clays infiltration often fails, so discharge frequently has to be designed to a watercourse or sewer at a controlled rate — which the LLFA will want evidenced, not assumed.

Development across Leicestershire and what it means for flood risk

Leicestershire is one of the Midlands' busier development counties, and the type of scheme tends to dictate the flood and drainage work it needs. Its central position on the motorway network has made it a national logistics hub, large-scale housing is being delivered at the edges of its towns, and rural conversions are common across the vales and uplands.

• Strategic housing and urban extensions. Schemes such as New Lubbesthorpe in Blaby — around 4,250 homes with employment land between the M1 and M69 — bring large impermeable areas that have to manage surface water to greenfield rates across the whole site, usually through a network of SuDS features and attenuation.
• Logistics and employment. Big-shed distribution along the M1, M69 and A42 corridors creates vast roof and yard areas. Controlling runoff from those surfaces, and proving it, is central to discharging drainage conditions.
• Town-centre and brownfield regeneration. Redevelopment in Loughborough, Hinckley and Coalville often sits close to culverted brooks or canals, where existing flow routes and residual risk need careful handling.
• Rural and agricultural conversions. Barn conversions and small rural schemes near the Wreake, Eye or Welland frequently need an assessment because of their proximity to a watercourse, even when the building itself is modest.

Climate change is not optional here. A Leicestershire assessment must apply the Environment Agency's allowances for higher river flows and rainfall over the development's lifetime — generally 100 years for housing — which sets floor levels, freeboard and how much attenuation a drainage scheme needs.

How Unda helps with flood risk in Leicestershire

Unda are flood risk and drainage consultants with deep experience of Leicestershire's catchments, planning authorities and flood history. We act as the accurate translation layer between your scheme and the requirements of the Environment Agency, Leicestershire County Council and your district planning authority.

We produce clear, technically robust reports that satisfy the consultees and keep applications moving. A Senior Flood Risk Consultant signs off every report, and we stay involved past submission to answer objections. Where the national maps are not enough, we model how a flood would actually behave on your site, so the report reflects the real risk rather than a template with the place name changed.

Flood risk assessments for every situation in Leicestershire

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, but they answer different questions: is the site safe, should the development be here, and where does the surface water go. Unda prepare all three, and the related reports around them, for sites across Leicestershire.

• Flood risk assessment for planning. The core report for an England planning application, demonstrating the site is safe for its lifetime and does not increase risk elsewhere. Groundwater, and where needed flood modelling, are assessed within it rather than as separate reports.
• Flood risk survey for property purchase. A property-specific survey for homebuyers and their advisers, going beyond a conveyancing search to assess the actual building.
• Flood risk assessment for insurance. Property-level evidence where cover has been restricted, declined or repriced.
• Flood risk assessment for BREEAM. Structured around BREEAM Pol 03 for project teams targeting certification.
• Sequential and exception tests. The locational justification when development is proposed in a higher-risk area.
• Surface-water drainage strategy and SuDS. How runoff is managed and restricted, with discharge of drainage conditions and preliminary drainage design as the scheme develops.
• Groundwater flood risk. Assessed within the FRA where the site demands it — groundwater as a source every assessment considers, set against floor levels, foundations and basements. Our guidance on NPPF flood risk explains how it all fits together.

Working up a scheme yourself? Our free tools give an early read: the Flood Risk Map and Live River Levels Map for flood context, and the Geology & Ground Conditions checker, Drainage Calculators and BRE 365 infiltration calculator for drainage. The cost of a report depends on the site — see how flood risk assessments are priced.

Flood risk management and emergency contacts in Leicestershire

Responsibility for flooding in Leicestershire is shared between several bodies, and knowing who does what helps both in an emergency and when you are preparing an application. For an immediate threat to life during a flood, always call 999; for a power cut during flooding, call 105.

• Leicestershire County Council (Lead Local Flood Authority). Surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourses; flood reporting and the Local Flood Risk Management Strategy at leicestershire.gov.uk.
• Environment Agency. Main rivers and reservoirs; live warnings and river levels at check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk; sign up for flood warnings or call Floodline on 0345 988 1188.
• Trent Regional Flood and Coastal Committee. The regional committee that steers Environment Agency flood investment for most of the county; the eastern fringe sits with the Anglian (Northern) committee.
• Severn Trent Water and Anglian Water. Public sewer flooding, depending on which company bills you — most of the county is Severn Trent, with Anglian Water on the eastern edges.
• LLR Prepared (Local Resilience Forum). Emergency planning and response for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland at llrprepared.org.uk.

If your property adjoins a watercourse you may be a riparian owner, with a legal responsibility to keep the channel clear and let water pass — a duty the Environment Agency and LLFA routinely raise in planning. Melton Borough Council and the other district councils also hold local flooding and sandbag information.

Flood risk assessment in Leicestershire: frequently asked questions