Flood Risk Assessment in Newark-on-Trent

A flood risk assessment in Newark-on-Trent has two rivers to deal with. The Trent divides around the town, one channel passing the castle and the other looping out through Kelham, and the River Devon comes up from the south to join it at Newark Marina. Most of the town stands above both: only about one-tenth of its built-up area lies in Flood Zone 3. The low ground by the water has flooded three times since October 2023, though, and a site there needs more than a zone check. We prepare flood risk assessments, sequential and exception tests and drainage strategies for sites across the town.

This page takes Newark-on-Trent as the Office for National Statistics draws its built-up area: the town centre and Northgate, the riverside from Tolney Lane and Millgate to the Cattle Market, Hawtonville and the Bowbridge Road side to the south, Beacon Hill to the east and the Farndon Road edge by the Devon, all within the NG24 postcode district. Balderton and Fernwood, to the south-east, form a separate built-up area, and Farndon village is beyond the Devon to the south-west. All three are in Newark and Sherwood district and are covered in the text where they matter.

Homes on Farndon Road, beside the River Devon, flooded in October 2023, January 2024 and January 2025: three times in fifteen months, according to Nottinghamshire County Council's flood investigations.

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

The Trent's two channels and the River Devon

Newark is one of the towns on the River Trent where the river splits. Above the town it divides: the main channel swings west past Averham and Kelham, while a navigable branch takes boats through Town Lock and Nether Lock beside the castle, and the two meet again at Crankley Point to the north. The Devon comes in from the south and joins the Trent at Newark Marina, passing close to Farndon Road on the way. The Trent is not tidal here: its tidal limit is Cromwell Weir, about 8 km downstream, according to the district's 2023 strategic flood risk assessment.

The Environment Agency's gauges either side of the town show how the Trent behaves. At North Muskham, just downstream, the normal range tops out at 3.30 m, property flooding is possible above 3.64 m and the highest level on record is 3.95 m, reached on 9 November 2000. Upstream, the Farndon gauge recorded 2.76 m in the same flood. Our live river levels map shows both, plus the Devon gauge at Wensor Bridge and any warning in force. The Trent's whole course is covered on our River Trent page.

Look up a Newark address, from Northgate to Hawtonville

Enter a postcode in the map below for a first screen of one Newark address against the Environment Agency's river, surface water and reservoir layers, or use our full flood risk map for anywhere else in England. The coral outline is the town's ONS built-up area, so Balderton, Fernwood and Farndon fall just outside it.

Laying the Flood Map for Planning over that outline on 21 October 2026, we found about 11% of the built-up area in Flood Zone 3 and a further 8% in Flood Zone 2, leaving roughly four-fifths in Flood Zone 1 (our note on what each flood zone means explains the bands). The Environment Agency's recorded outline of the March 1947 flood covers almost exactly the same share as Flood Zone 3 today, and the January 2024 outline about 4%. A Flood Zone 1 address is not automatically clear, though: Beacon Heights and Lime Grove both flooded from rain.

Newark flooding on record, 1875 to 2025

The record runs from 1875 to three county council investigations in fifteen months. These are the events with dates and sources:

1. October 1875. The Trent stood so deep over the fields that four boys from the grammar school are said to have rowed across the countryside to Kelham.
2. March 1947. The largest of the Environment Agency's recorded outlines inside the town covers about 0.97 km² of today's built-up area. Smaller outlines follow for 1950, February 1977 and the Devon in 1978 and 1979.
3. November 2000. The Trent reached 3.95 m at North Muskham on 9 November and 2.76 m at Farndon, the highest levels either gauge has recorded.
4. 18 to 20 October 2023, Storm Babet. 124 mm of rain fell at Staythorpe. Fifteen homes and two businesses in the town flooded inside: 13 homes and a business on Farndon Road from the Devon, two homes on Beacon Heights from surface water and a business on Bowbridge Road (Section 19 report).
5. 2 to 5 January 2024, Storm Henk. Thirty-two properties flooded inside, in the Farndon Road area, the Kelham Road area and Lime Grove. The county council traced the Kelham Road flooding to the floodplain interacting with the public sewers (Section 19 report).
6. 4 to 8 January 2025. Rain and snowmelt on frozen ground sent the Devon to 4.03 m at Wensor Bridge, level with its record. Seven homes and two businesses on Farndon Road flooded for the third time in fifteen months (Section 19 report).

Storm Henk is often described as a record for the Trent near Newark. The gauge data does not bear that out: the Environment Agency's daily maxima give 3.78 m at North Muskham on 5 January 2024 and 2.66 m at Farndon, both about 0.1 to 0.2 m short of November 2000. What has changed is how often the low ground floods: Farndon Road three times in fifteen months. Our explainer on Section 19 flood investigations says what these reports can and cannot do.

Farndon Road, Kelham Road and Tolney Lane

Three parts of the town turn up again and again in the warnings and the investigations, and each raises a different question for a site:

• Farndon Road. The Devon floods gardens first and then homes. Residents have suggested that earthworks at Middlebeck to the south made it worse; the Environment Agency's view, as the county council records it, is that the evidence is inconclusive. The agency is building a Devon flood warning from the Wensor Bridge gauge and updating its Trent model, lower Devon included, with survey work from 2025.
• Kelham Road and the Cattle Market. The Environment Agency's Cattle Market warning area covers Kelham Road, Cullen Close, Sandhills Park and Sandhills Close. In 2024 the water came through the sewers as well as over the ground, and Severn Trent is looking at how to make its network there more resilient to the river.
• Tolney Lane. The long-established Gypsy and Traveller sites west of the river lie in Flood Zones 2, 3a and 3b, and the only road out is in the functional floodplain, as the planning inspector noted in August 2026. The council's 2019 appraisal found about 150 m of the lane dangerous for most people in a 1 in 20 year flood and preferred raising it to the Great North Road, at a preliminary cost of about £2.9 million (options appraisal).
• Riverside property. The riverside warning area names Mather Road, Brewer's Wharf and Water Lane; the Tolney Lane area was the first to be warned in both 2024 and 2025.

For a site in any of these places the flood zone is only the starting point. What decides the layout is what reaches the site if the river overtops, the sewers back up or the gravels fill. How that question is worked through is set out in our guide to residual flood risk.

Gravels, cellars and soakaways

Much of the low ground in Newark sits on sand and gravel laid down by the Trent, and water in those gravels rises and falls with the river. The district's 2023 strategic flood risk assessment puts groundwater susceptibility above 75% around the Trent and its floodplain, and its earlier mapping treated infiltration across most of the floodplain as unrealistic. In October 2023 groundwater rose into cellars on Farndon Road while the Devon was in flood.

Higher ground to the east, around Beacon Hill and Bowbridge Road, is rated lower, at 25 to 50% for the allocated sites the district screened. So a soakaway that works on one side of the town may fail by the river. Our free ground conditions and soakaway checker gives a first view of a site, and our article on infiltration testing explains when a test is needed before the drainage is fixed; where one is done, our BRE 365 calculator turns the results into an infiltration rate.

What does a flood risk assessment in Newark-on-Trent have to satisfy?

Newark and Sherwood District Council decides planning applications in Newark, and Nottinghamshire County Council, as Lead Local Flood Authority, advises on surface water for major schemes. Five sources set the rules a Newark application must meet:

National policy sits in chapter 18 of the August 2026 NPPF: policy F4 says when an assessment is needed, F5 and F6 cover the sequential and exception tests, and F8 expects development to follow the 2025 National Standards for sustainable drainage. Allocated sites in Newark have already passed the sequential test, but those in areas at risk still need the exception test, as the main modifications make clear (schedule). For a windfall site, the sequential test is measured against reasonably available sites across Newark and Sherwood.

Middlebeck and the sites allocated around Newark

Newark can only grow between the Trent and the A1, or southwards: the Core Strategy says the A46, the river and its floodplains close off the west and north. The Southern Link Road, Middlebeck Way, opened in spring 2026 and links the A1 with the A46 across the south of the town (council news). Each allocation below comes with its own flood question:

Fernwood sits in the separate Balderton built-up area rather than the town itself, but it is planned as part of Newark's growth. The district's 2023 Level 2 assessment screened the town's housing allocations one by one, and its findings are where a site-specific assessment starts.

From a Millgate conversion to a Farndon Road extension: which proposals need an assessment

Whether a Newark proposal needs an assessment turns on policy F4, the district's DM5 and, for small extensions, the Environment Agency's standing advice. Applied to the sites the town produces, the answers look like this:

The national triggers, including the surface water and critical drainage rules, are set out in our guide to when a flood risk assessment is needed.

Reports we prepare for Newark sites, from the Trent to the Devon

A buyer on Farndon Road, a developer at Middlebeck and a business by the Sugar Factory need different reports, and many sites in the town face the river and the sewers at once. Every report is written by chartered consultants and checked by a senior consultant before it is issued.

• Planning applications by the river. Homes, conversions and commercial schemes in the Trent or Devon floodplain need a flood risk assessment for planning that answers Core Policy 10 and DM5 and works from the 2023 flood levels.
• Two rivers, groundwater and sewers together. A flood risk assessment for a Newark site weighs the Trent, the Devon, water in the gravels and sewer surcharge as one picture.
• Before exchange. Conveyancing searches flag the riverside and Farndon Road, and a flood risk survey for property purchase sets out what the 2023 to 2025 floods mean for one house.
• Homes in the higher zones. New homes in Flood Zones 2 and 3 go through the sequential and exception test, and DM5(c) normally sets the search area as the whole district.
• Drainage on every scheme. Core Policy 10 asks every scheme to manage its runoff, and a drainage strategy shows how before the county council comments.
• Storage where soakaways fail. On the floodplain gravels a surface water drainage strategy stores water on site and limits the outflow to the greenfield rate.
• Clearing the condition. Where a Newark and Sherwood permission comes with a drainage condition, discharge of drainage conditions supplies the details, the board's consent and the maintenance plan.
• Levels the national model cannot give. With the Environment Agency still updating its Trent model and the lower Devon, flood modelling can set floor levels and escape routes for one riverside plot.
• Warnings that come first. Five warning areas cover parts of the town, Tolney Lane first in both 2024 and 2025, and a flood warning and evacuation plan ties a building to the right one.
• Water in the cellar. Farndon Road cellars flooded from the ground in 2023, and a groundwater flood risk assessment looks at basements and below-ground storage on the gravels.
• Cover after repeat flooding. Farndon Road homes have flooded three times in fifteen months, and a flood risk assessment for insurance gives an insurer evidence for one address.
• Keeping a business open. Businesses on Bowbridge Road and Farndon Road flooded in 2023 and 2025, and a business continuity flood risk assessment plans for the next time the river or the drains rise.
• Employment land at Middlebeck. NAP 2A sets aside 50 ha for employment, and a BREEAM flood risk assessment covers the Pol 03 credits for new commercial buildings.
• Land before an offer. With Middlebeck, Land East of Newark and Fernwood still to build out, a flood risk feasibility study shows early whether a layout works with the beck and the drains.

Who to call about flooding in Newark: river, drains, sewers and the board

In an emergency, where floodwater puts anyone at risk, call 999; for a power cut call 105. For everything else, the work is split between these bodies:

Our guides to the Lead Local Flood Authority and to internal drainage boards explain where each fits in a planning application.

Questions about Newark sites, the Trent and the Devon

Unda Consulting Limited prepares flood risk assessments, sequential and exception tests and drainage strategies for sites across Newark-on-Trent, from Northgate and the riverside to Farndon Road and Middlebeck. For the wider county see our Nottinghamshire page; upstream on the Trent, our Nottingham page; across the county boundary to the east, Lincolnshire; and where the Devon rises, Leicestershire. Every place we cover is listed on our areas page. To discuss a site, call 01293 214444 or email enquiries@unda.co.uk.