River Ribble Flooding & Flood Risk

River Ribble flooding is made at Great Mitton, below Clitheroe, where the Hodder and the Lancashire Calder join the main river less than a mile apart and more than double it. The Ribble runs about 120 km (75 miles) from Gayle Beck near Ribblehead in the Yorkshire Dales, through Settle, Clitheroe and Ribchester to Preston, where it meets the tide, and out through a wide estuary between Lytham St Annes and Southport. We write flood risk assessments and drainage strategies for land anywhere along it, from Ribblesdale to the estuary marshes.

During Storm Ciara on 9 February 2020, five Ribble gauges between Clitheroe and Walton-le-Dale reached levels that are still their highest on record. At New Jumbles Rock, just below the Calder, the peak was 1,192 cubic metres a second, almost three times the flow passing Henthorn, a short way upstream, half an hour earlier.

To talk through a site on the Ribble, call 01293 214444 or email enquiries@unda.co.uk.

• Three reaches. A fast limestone river in Ribblesdale above Settle; a much bigger one from Great Mitton to Samlesbury once the Hodder and Calder are in; and a tidal one from the eastern edge of Preston to the sea.
• Who regulates it. The Environment Agency, from Horton in Ribblesdale to the estuary, because that length is Main River. North Yorkshire Council and Lancashire County Council look after surface water and the smaller becks and brooks.
• Where the tide stops. At Fishwick Bottoms, between Walton-le-Dale and the M6. Everything from there down, including the whole Preston riverside, is tidal water.
• Warnings. The Agency runs 22 flood warning areas on the river and its estuary, starting at Settle, and three wider alert areas.

What happens to the River Ribble at Great Mitton?

It more than doubles. At Henthorn, just above the confluences, the Ribble drains 456 km² of the Dales and the upper Ribble Valley. Within about a mile it takes in the Hodder from the Forest of Bowland and the Calder from Burnley, Nelson and Accrington, and at New Jumbles Rock it drains 1,053 km². The three rivers are similar in size and tend to peak together, which is why Ribchester, Samlesbury and Preston see far larger floods than Clitheroe does.

Figures are from the National River Flow Archive's reviewed peak flow records, read on 10 November 2026. The median annual flood is the peak a gauge passes in about half of all years, so Ciara's flood at New Jumbles Rock was more than twice an ordinary year's.

• Forty-five minutes apart. On 9 February 2020 the Hodder peaked at 12:30 with 381 cubic metres a second, the Ribble at Henthorn at 13:00 with 420 and the Calder at 13:15 with 423. New Jumbles Rock peaked at 13:30 and Samlesbury at 16:45, so the crest took about three hours to run down to the edge of Preston.
• Ribblesdale. Above Settle the river falls quickly off Carboniferous limestone and Millstone Grit, and boulder clay lines the valley floor. Below the town the floodplain of Long Preston Deeps stores some of each flood, and the Archive notes that peaks at Arnford are flattened by it.
• The Hodder. Bowland is the wettest part of the catchment, averaging about 1,700 mm of rain a year. Stocks Reservoir controls only 15% of the Hodder's catchment, so it does little to hold a flood back.
• The Calder. About a fifth of its catchment is built up, around Burnley, Nelson and Accrington, and it floods Whalley and Billington before it reaches the Ribble. This is the Lancashire Calder. The West Yorkshire River Calder, which runs the other way through Hebden Bridge to the Aire, is a different river.
• Below Samlesbury. Two more rivers join on tidal water: the Darwen at Walton-le-Dale, carrying the runoff of Blackburn and Darwen, and the Douglas at Hesketh Bank, which drains Wigan.

The River Ribble's floods, from 1866 to New Year 2025

The Ribble has flooded Preston and Walton-le-Dale at intervals since at least 1771, and its largest gauged floods have all come since 1980. The Environment Agency's flood history for Preston and South Ribble lists fourteen river floods between 1771 and 2015, and the gauges add two more, in February 2020 and on New Year's Day 2025.

1. November 1866. The Agency rates it as rarer than a 100-year flood. Broadgate stood under as much as 1.5 m of water, and Fishergate, Walton-le-Dale, Avenham, Strand Road and Lower Penwortham flooded too.
2. December 1936. Walton-le-Dale, Avenham and Miller Park flooded after 35 mm of rain fell on Preston in a day, in a flood the Agency's history names for the Hodder, the upper Ribble and Preston.
3. 27 October 1980. 1,040 cubic metres a second at Samlesbury. Two days of rain arrived with high tides, and properties between the A6 and the Tram Bridge flooded to about 0.3 m.
4. 31 January to 1 February 1995. 1,005 cubic metres a second at Samlesbury, and about 38 properties flooded in Preston, Walton-le-Dale and Ribchester.
5. 26 December 2015, Storm Eva. Samlesbury reached 6.56 m, still the highest level on that gauge, at 1,113 cubic metres a second. The Calder set its own record at Whalley. Lancashire County Council's Ribble Valley flood report counted 17 properties flooded inside at Ribchester, from the Ribble, Boyce's Brook and Duddel Brook, and 196 at Whalley from the Calder.
6. 9 February 2020, Storm Ciara. Record levels at Low Moor, Henthorn, New Jumbles Rock, Ribchester School and Walton-le-Dale, and the largest flow in Samlesbury's accepted record at 1,171 cubic metres a second. The Agency estimates that 24 properties flooded on Greenside and Ribblesdale Road in Ribchester.
7. 1 January 2025. 924 cubic metres a second at Samlesbury early on New Year's Day, the fifth largest flood there since 1973.

Which flood was the worst depends on the gauge. At Samlesbury the level record belongs to Boxing Day 2015, while the Archive's flow record ranks Ciara slightly higher. Upstream, Ciara holds every record from Clitheroe to Ribchester. The upper river kept its own calendar: the gauges around Settle peaked on 22 February and 2 November 2020. A site needs the record of its own reach, which is the reasoning behind the flood return periods used in an assessment. Councils publish what flooded and why in a Section 19 investigation.

Flows are from the Archive's record for Samlesbury (71001), which sets aside its readings before 1973 as overestimates. The 2015 damage in Walton-le-Dale and Higher Walton, about 95 properties, is attributed by the Agency to the Darwen and not to the Ribble.

Ten River Ribble gauges on the live map, from Settle to Penwortham

The coral line follows the Ribble from Gayle Beck near Ribblehead to the outer estuary, and each pin is one of its ten Environment Agency gauges. Click a pin for the latest reading, or open our live river levels map to see the Hodder, Calder and Darwen gauges beside it. A postcode typed into the box screens that address against the Agency's mapping for rivers and the sea, surface water and reservoirs.

Each gauge measures from its own zero, so a reading means something only against that gauge's thresholds. The table lists them in order downstream.

Source: Environment Agency station pages, read on 10 November 2026. Ribchester, Samlesbury and Walton-le-Dale have each been more than a metre above the level at which the Agency expects property to flood. Low Moor has never reached its threshold. The Penwortham gauge opened in October 2023, so its record is a short one.

How far up the River Ribble does the tide reach?

To Fishwick Bottoms, on the eastern edge of Preston. Ordnance Survey mapping ends the tidal river there, the Environment Agency's catchment plan says the tide is felt as far as Brockholes Bridge a little further up, and the National River Flow Archive describes the Samlesbury gauge as just upstream of the tidal limit. Walton-le-Dale, Frenchwood, Avenham, Broadgate, Lower Penwortham and the docks all stand beside tidal water, and a flood there can come from the river, the sea or both.

• Two records, two causes. Walton-le-Dale's highest level came down the river in February 2020. Penwortham's was set on 9 April 2024, a date that appears nowhere in the river gauges' records, because that gauge follows the tide.
• When both arrive together. A high tide holds the river back and shuts the outfalls of the brooks and drains behind the defences. The Agency's plan names Savick Brook, Dow Brook and Liggard Brook as tide-locked in this way, and the 1980 flood followed two days of rain on high tides.
• Wider permit margins. Works within 16 metres of the tidal river or a sea defence can need an Environment Agency flood risk activity permit, against 8 metres on the non-tidal river above Fishwick Bottoms. Our explainer on how these permits work covers the exemptions.
• The estuary. Below the docks the river runs between training walls across salt marsh at Clifton, Hutton, Longton, Hesketh and Banks. Flooding here is from the sea, and our guide to tidal flooding explains how extreme sea levels enter a planning assessment.

Which places does the River Ribble flood, from Settle to the estuary marshes?

Settle is the first town with its own flood warnings, and from there the warned places are Low Moor at Clitheroe, Ribchester, Samlesbury, Walton-le-Dale, the Preston and Penwortham riverside and the farms on the estuary marshes. Between them the river floods farmland, roads and the low edges of villages, which the Agency covers with alerts. The table runs downstream.

Warning areas from the Environment Agency's flood-monitoring service, read on 10 November 2026. From Samlesbury down, the river also sits in the Lower River Ribble and Darwen alert area.

The Agency's 2009 Ribble catchment flood management plan counted about 2,300 properties at risk in Preston and Walton-le-Dale, rising to 5,300 with climate change, and 90 in Settle. An address inside a warning area usually lies in Flood Zone 2 or 3; our guide to flood zones explains what each asks of an application, and any postcode can be checked on our flood risk map. For the other rivers of each county, see our Lancashire and Yorkshire pages.

Is the whole River Ribble a Main River?

Nearly all of it. On the Environment Agency's statutory Main River map the designation starts at Horton in Ribblesdale and runs to the estuary off Freckleton, about 100 km of channel. The first 9 km or so, from Gayle Beck past Selside to Horton, is an ordinary watercourse. On the Main River the Agency decides what may be built in or beside the channel, and a new wall, outfall, bridge or building near the bank can need its permit as well as planning permission.

• Above Horton, and on every beck. The head of the river and the becks and brooks off the Main River map are ordinary watercourses. Works that affect their flow need consent from the lead local flood authority: North Yorkshire Council in Ribblesdale, Lancashire County Council from Paythorne down.
• Who keeps the bank. Maintenance of either kind of watercourse falls to the riparian owner whose land it crosses, which on the Ribble is mostly farms and estates.
• Who decides the application. North Yorkshire Council or the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority in Ribblesdale; Ribble Valley Borough Council from Gisburn to Ribchester; South Ribble and Preston either side of the tidal river; Fylde and West Lancashire on the estuary.
• When an assessment is asked for. Policy F4 in chapter 18 of the NPPF sets out when a site needs one: in Flood Zone 2 or 3, on larger sites, and where another source of flooding affects the land. Our guide to when a flood risk assessment is needed lists the triggers.

What do the new Preston and South Ribble flood walls mean for a site?

They lower the chance of flooding at Broadgate, Riverside and Lower Penwortham, and they leave the flood zone where it was. The Environment Agency draws the Flood Map for Planning as if defences were absent, so land behind the new walls is still assessed as Flood Zone 2 or 3, with the added question of what happens if a wall is overtopped or a floodgate is left open.

• Phase 1, finished June 2026. The Agency's announcement of 17 June 2026 describes "an investment of over £55m": about 2 km of new flood walls, some topped with glass, a 20,000 tonne clay embankment and four floodgates, built since 2022.
• Gates that stand open. The four floodgates are closed by Agency staff only when a flood warning is in force, so a site behind one depends on the warning as well as the wall.
• Phase 2, Walton-le-Dale. South Ribble Borough Council approved the Walton-le-Dale defences in March 2026. The Agency's scheme page said in autumn 2026 that construction under that permission was delayed, with start dates to follow.
• Who it protects. The Agency says the finished scheme will reduce flood risk for "thousands of local homes and businesses" on the Ribble and the Darwen. The defences it replaces were built between the 1920s and the early 2000s.
• Upstream of Preston. Ribchester has no permanent defences: earlier proposals did not meet the funding rules, and in October 2022 the Agency withdrew its temporary barrier plan because the river rises faster than the barriers could be put up. Work there now centres on natural flood management in the Boyces, Duddel and Stydd Brook catchments.

Behind a wall, an assessment sets out how deep the water would be if the defence were overtopped or breached, and how quickly it would arrive. Our notes on residual flood risk and on why a site stays in a flood zone after new defences explain both. The scheme's place in national spending is covered in our article on the £7.9bn flood defence programme.

Flood and drainage reports for sites from Ribblesdale to the Preston riverside

A mill conversion in Settle, a house purchase in Ribchester and an industrial unit at Riversway raise different questions, and the reports are different too. A flood risk assessment tests whether a building will be safe and whether it sends water onto anyone else. A sequential test is about location: could the scheme go on land at lower risk? A drainage strategy shows where the site's own rainwater will go and how fast it may leave. They are often submitted together and remain three separate documents.

• One river, three behaviours. A flood risk assessment on the Ribble starts by placing the site above Mitton, below it or on the tidal reach, because the gauge record, the warning area and the permit margin all change between them.
• Applications in Flood Zone 2 or 3. New homes and conversions in Settle, Low Moor, Ribchester, Walton-le-Dale and Broadgate need a flood risk assessment for planning that satisfies the planning authority and the Environment Agency.
• Buying where the river has been in. Greenside and Ribblesdale Road in Ribchester flooded in 2015 and 2020, and streets like them show up in searches and lenders' questions; a flood risk survey for property purchase explains what that history means for one building before exchange.
• Unallocated land beside the tidal river. Central Lancashire's planning policy steers development away from flood risk at Penwortham, Walton-le-Dale and south-west Preston, so a scheme there usually has to pass the sequential and exception test under policies F5 and F6 of the NPPF.
• Runoff into a river that is already full. North Yorkshire Council and Lancashire County Council both expect new development to hold its runoff back, and a drainage strategy starts from the discharge rate each will accept.
• Boulder clay under most of the valley. The clay that lines the Ribble's valleys rarely lets a soakaway work, so a surface water drainage strategy here usually relies on storage and a controlled outfall, set out against the national standards that policy F8 applies.
• After permission. Where a decision notice has a drainage condition attached, we prepare the details the council needs for the discharge of drainage conditions before work starts.
• Levels where the tide meets the river. Between Walton-le-Dale and the docks neither the river record nor the tide table gives a flood level on its own, and flood modelling works out the combined level, or the depth behind a breached wall, for one site.
• Homes that have flooded. Owners in Ribchester and Walton-le-Dale whose houses flooded in 2015 or 2020 can use a flood risk assessment for insurance to show a broker or underwriter how the building stands now.
• Behind the floodgates. A building that relies on gates closed during a warning, or one in Ribchester where the river outruns temporary barriers, needs a flood warning and evacuation plan that says who does what at each warning stage.
• Industrial estates in the warning areas. Sowarth Field in Settle, the Leyland Road and Factory Lane estates in Lower Penwortham and the Riversway docklands all lie inside warning areas, and a business continuity assessment plans how an occupier keeps trading through a flood.
• Buying or lending on commercial property. For an acquisition at the Capitol Centre in Walton-le-Dale or on the docklands, commercial flood risk due diligence sets the river, the tide and the state of the defences against the asset before completion.

To see whether infiltration is even a possibility on a plot, our soakaway ground conditions map shows the mapped geology.

Who manages flooding on the River Ribble, and who to ring

The Environment Agency's Cumbria and Lancashire area runs the Main River, its defences and gauges and the warning service along the whole Ribble, including the North Yorkshire reach. Flooding from a beck, a culvert, a road or a field goes to North Yorkshire Council above Paythorne and to Lancashire County Council below. Sewer flooding goes to United Utilities, whose network covers the whole catchment from Settle to the coast.

• Plans for the catchment. Current measures are in the North West flood risk management plan 2021 to 2027, and the river's water bodies are listed under the Ribble management catchment.
• Who approves the spending. The North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee, for every reach of the river.
• Warnings. Sign up free at GOV.UK flood warnings or ring Floodline on 0345 988 1188.
• In an emergency. Call 999 if life is at risk and 105 for a power cut. The Lancashire and North Yorkshire local resilience forums co-ordinate the response to a major flood.
• Neighbouring rivers. Cam Fell, where one of the Ribble's head becks rises, also feeds the River Wharfe, and Lancashire's other large river is the River Lune to the north.

River Ribble flooding: questions we are asked

Send us the address and a line on what you plan to build or buy, or call 01293 214444 or email enquiries@unda.co.uk, and a chartered consultant will say which reports the site needs. Reports for sites along the Ribble are issued by Unda Consulting Limited, a CIWEM Business Partner. Our other river guides are on the rivers hub.