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Flood Action Week 2026: what it is, when it runs and whether it works

Flood Action Week 2026 runs from 12 to 18 October 2026. It is the Environment Agency's annual public awareness campaign, asking households and businesses across England to check their flood risk, sign up for warnings and make a plan before…
Posted on 12th October, 2026
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Flood and Drought Resilience Taskforce: What Is Actually New?

The Flood and Drought Resilience Taskforce is a government advisory group, chaired by Floods and Drought Minister Emma Hardy, which meets for the first time this Wednesday, 14 October. Defra announced it today as a new body. On the evidence…
Posted on 11th October, 2026
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Home Flood Defences: Doors, Barriers, Airbricks and What Comes First

Flood defences for homes are the products and building changes that stop floodwater getting into a house, or limit the damage when it does: flood doors and door barriers, self-closing airbricks, non-return valves on drains, sealed walls, and a sump…
Posted on 9th October, 2026
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What Is a Flood Wall? Design, Failure and Building One Around a House

A flood wall is a permanent, vertical barrier that holds floodwater back from the land behind it. Flood walls are built in brick, masonry, reinforced concrete or steel sheet piling, usually along a riverbank or seafront where there is no…
Posted on 7th October, 2026
, in FRAP 
, in NPPF 
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Temporary and Demountable Flood Barriers: How They Work, and Why Warning Time Decides

Temporary flood barriers are free-standing units brought to a site and put up when a flood is forecast. Demountable flood barriers slot into foundations, sockets or channels that stay in the ground all year. Both are active defences, which means…
Posted on 6th October, 2026
, in Cost 
, in NPPF 
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Sea Defences: How Sea Walls, Groynes, Rock Armour and Beach Nourishment Work

Sea defences are the structures and managed natural features that stop the sea flooding or eroding the land behind them. They fall into two families: hard defences such as sea walls, rock armour, revetments, groynes and offshore breakwaters, which resist…
Posted on 5th October, 2026
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Why Mexico City is sinking: the lake it drained, and the ground that followed

Mexico City is sinking, and the cause is neither climate change nor bad luck. The ground is falling because water was taken out from underneath it, and the fine grains of an old lakebed have been repacking themselves ever since.…
Posted on 2nd October, 2026
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Types of Flood Defences: How Flood Defences Work in the UK

Flood defences are the structures and measures that keep floodwater away from people and property, or limit the damage when it gets in. The types of flood defences in use in the UK run from a tidal barrier protecting a…
Posted on 1st October, 2026
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Public Sewer Maps: How to Find Sewers Near a Property

A public sewer map is the water company's record of the sewers, lateral drains and disposal mains it owns. Every sewerage company in England and Wales has to keep one under section 199 of the Water Industry Act 1991 and…
Posted on 30th September, 2026
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What Does AOD Mean? Above Ordnance Datum, mAOD and Floor Levels Explained

AOD stands for above Ordnance Datum, the national zero that heights in Great Britain are measured from. A level written as 12.40 mAOD sits 12.40 metres above that zero, which is fixed at mean sea level recorded at Newlyn in…
Posted on 29th September, 2026
, in GIS 
, in NPPF 
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What Is a Weir? How Weirs and Sluices Control River Levels

What is a weir? It is a low barrier built across the full width of a river, so that the water spills over its top instead of passing round it. The job of a weir is to hold the river…
Posted on 28th September, 2026
, in FRAP 
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A silt trap, a reed bed and a strip of scrub: Sri Lanka’s 2,000-year-old tank cascade system

A tank cascade system is a chain of small reservoirs built down a shallow valley in Sri Lanka's dry zone, so that the spill and seepage from each one becomes the inflow to the next. Thousands of them survive, and…
Posted on 26th September, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Natural England and SSSIs: What It Means for a Planning Application

A planning application near a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) can be referred to Natural England, the government body that protects England's SSSIs. Natural England advises the council on whether the scheme could harm the site. It formally objects…
Posted on 25th September, 2026
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
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Managed Retreat: When Homes Are Moved Away From Flood Risk

Managed retreat is the planned removal of homes, people and infrastructure from land where the risk of flooding or erosion can no longer be managed at an acceptable cost. The buildings are bought, then demolished, and the land goes back…
Posted on 24th September, 2026
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Flood Zone 3b Explained: The Functional Floodplain in England

Flood Zone 3b is the functional floodplain: land where water from rivers or the sea has to flow or be stored in times of flood. It is the most heavily restricted flood zone in the English planning system, and the…
Posted on 23rd September, 2026
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Can I Raise My Land to Get Out of the Floodplain?

Raising the ground is one of the first ideas people reach for when a site turns out to sit in Flood Zone 2 or 3. The answer is almost always no. You cannot raise land out of the floodplain in…
Posted on 22nd September, 2026
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Perched Groundwater: How to Tell It From the Water Table

Perched groundwater is a body of shallow groundwater held above the main water table by a layer of low-permeability ground, with unsaturated material beneath it. That unsaturated gap is the definition. Water standing in a trial pit on a clay…
Posted on 21st September, 2026
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Kasumi-tei: how Japan built levees with gaps in them on purpose, and why it stopped

An open levee is a flood embankment built in overlapping segments with deliberate gaps left between them, so floodwater can spread sideways onto farmland as the river rises and drain back out through the same gaps as it falls. Japan…
Posted on 18th September, 2026
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The MAGIC Map Explained: What It Shows, and What It Doesn’t

The MAGIC map is Defra's free public map of environmental and countryside data for Great Britain, holding more than 400 layers from around 30 organisations in a single browser-based viewer. For anyone appraising a development site it answers one narrow…
Posted on 17th September, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Groundwater Source Protection Zones: What They Are and What They Change

A groundwater source protection zone is an area the Environment Agency draws around a groundwater drinking water abstraction to show how quickly a pollutant released at that point would reach the supply. There are over 2,600 of them in England.…
Posted on 16th September, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Land drains on a development site: what to do when you find them

Land drains on a development site are not an obstruction to be cleared. They are somebody's drainage, they may carry water from well beyond the red line, and cutting one without a plan is the shortest route to a neighbour's…
Posted on 15th September, 2026
, in SuDS 
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The oldest drainage system in the world: who actually has the claim

A stone drainage system roughly 5,000 years old was reported at Liman Tepe on the Turkish Aegean coast on 14 September 2026, and the coverage reached, as it usually does, for the superlative. It should not have. There is no…
Posted on 14th September, 2026
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129 drains and half a metre of loam: how Machu Picchu handles two metres of rain a year

Machu Picchu takes close to two metres of rain a year on a granite ridge that falls away at roughly 50% either side, and it has stood there for around six centuries. The photograph everybody knows is the part above…
Posted on 11th September, 2026
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Why is dam breach data a secret?

Ask a navigation authority or a reservoir undertaker for the breach modelling data behind a raised embankment above your site, and there is a fair chance you will be told that the information is held and will not be released.…
Posted on 9th September, 2026
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Medieval drainage: the moats, monks and great drains you can still go and see

Medieval drainage has a public-relations problem. The popular picture is a filthy street, a chamber pot tipped out of a window and a moat brimming with sewage. A thousand years of squalor, sitting neatly between the Romans and the Victorians.…
Posted on 8th September, 2026
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Do You Need Planning Permission for a Swimming Pool?

Most people asking whether you need planning permission for a swimming pool get the same answer everywhere they look: probably not. That answer is usually right, and it is also the less useful half of the question. Permission settles whether…
Posted on 7th September, 2026
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
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Dry Island Sites: The Flood Risk Problem Outside the Flood Zones

A dry island is a piece of land that does not flood, surrounded by land that does. The site stays dry; everything around it goes under. Dry island flood risk is what follows from that position: occupants cannot leave, emergency…
Posted on 4th September, 2026
, in NPPF 
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BESS Flood Risk Assessment: What a Battery Storage Application Needs

A BESS flood risk assessment is the site-specific report a battery energy storage scheme submits with its planning application, and since 17 August 2026 it has been a harder document to write. Annex F of the August 2026 National Planning…
Posted on 3rd September, 2026
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Dry Weather Flow: What a Dry Day Spill Tells You About Sewer Capacity

Dry weather flow is the average daily volume reaching a wastewater treatment works when it has not been raining, and it is the number every foul drainage decision in a constrained catchment eventually rests on. When a storm overflow discharges…
Posted on 2nd September, 2026
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Glacier Collapse, Not a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood: What Happened in Nepal

At 08:37 on 26 August 2026, a mountainside in the Langtang Himal gave way. Seven minutes later a wall of rock, ice and liquefied sediment crossed the Nepal-China border twenty-two kilometres away, moving at close to 190 kilometres an hour.…
Posted on 2nd September, 2026
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BS EN 12056 explained: the standard for drainage inside buildings

BS EN 12056 is the British and European standard for gravity drainage inside buildings. It covers everything from the trap under a washbasin to the gutter on the roof, and it stops at the point where wastewater leaves the building.…
Posted on 1st September, 2026
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Flood Risk and Drainage for Data Centre Planning Applications

A data centre flood risk assessment has to clear a higher bar than the industrial-shed template most schemes were still using a year ago. Since 17 August 2026 the National Planning Policy Framework has listed data centres as essential infrastructure.…
Posted on 28th August, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Equestrian flood risk and drainage: the planning rules for stables, field shelters and ménages

Planning permission for stables is needed far more often than owners expect, and the flood risk and drainage requirements that come with it are the part almost nobody writes about. Horses are kept on low-lying grazing land: the cheap, wet,…
Posted on 27th August, 2026
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
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Flood Risk Assessments for Electrical Substations

A substation flood risk assessment establishes whether a proposed electrical substation will be reached by flooding during its working life, and sets the levels and the protection the equipment needs to survive it. It can be required for planning. It…
Posted on 27th August, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Basement and Cellar Conversions in a Flood Zone: The 2026 Planning Rules

A basement conversion flood risk assessment has to answer a question no other householder application faces: what happens to the people in the lowest room when the water arrives. Below-ground space is the only part of a home where the…
Posted on 26th August, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Can You Knock Down and Rebuild a House in a Flood Zone?

Yes, and it happens all the time. The obstacle when you rebuild a house in a flood zone is not the water; it is a reclassification. Planning does not treat a demolition and rebuild as a larger extension. It treats…
Posted on 25th August, 2026
, in NPPF 
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What Does Your Conveyancing Solicitor Do About Flood Risk?

Your conveyancing solicitor plays a real but limited part in flood risk. They order the searches that flag it, report the results to you and your lender, and pass on what the seller has disclosed. What they do not do,…
Posted on 24th August, 2026
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First flush explained: why the first few millimetres of rain matter most in SuDS

Every storm carries its dirtiest water at the start. In the first minutes of rain, run-off sluices weeks of built-up grime (oil, tyre and brake dust, sediment, metals and nutrients) off roofs, roads and car parks and into the nearest…
Posted on 21st August, 2026
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
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Flood Risk and Drainage for Gypsy and Traveller Sites: The Planning Requirements

A Gypsy and Traveller site flood risk assessment is needed for almost every pitch scheme on land that carries any flood risk, and these applications are judged against a tougher standard than ordinary housing. The reason is the caravan. Under…
Posted on 19th August, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Section 104 and Section 102 Agreements: A Developer’s Guide to Sewer Adoption

A Section 104 agreement is the contract that gets a development's new sewers taken over and maintained by the water company; a Section 102 agreement does the same job for sewers that are already in the ground. Both sit in…
Posted on 18th August, 2026
, in SuDS 
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What is a Section 106 sewer connection? The right to connect, explained

A section 106 sewer connection is the statutory right, under section 106 of the Water Industry Act 1991, for the owner or occupier of a property to connect its drains to the public sewer. It is a right, not a…
Posted on 18th August, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Oil Separators and BS EN 858: What the Standard Actually Requires

An oil separator is a below-ground chamber that holds back petrol, diesel and oil from surface water run-off before it leaves a site. The standard behind it is BS EN 858, published in two parts: Part 1 covers how the…
Posted on 14th August, 2026
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Five floods in two years: what a medieval disaster teaches us about back-to-back flooding

Between the autumn of 1341 and the end of 1343, much of Europe flooded again and again. A study published in Nature in August 2026 counted sixteen major flood events in that short window. Four of them were so large…
Posted on 13th August, 2026
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Why do water mains burst in hot weather? The hidden burst season explained

Ask most people when a water main bursts and they picture winter: a hard frost, a deep freeze, the metal splitting as the water inside turns to ice. That is half the story. The other half is playing out right…
Posted on 13th August, 2026
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BS EN 752 explained: the standard for drains and sewers outside buildings

BS EN 752 is the British and European standard for drain and sewer systems outside buildings. It sets out what those systems have to achieve, and how they should be managed through planning, design, construction, operation and rehabilitation. The objectives…
Posted on 12th August, 2026
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What have the Romans ever done for us? Aside from the drainage, obviously

Ask a Roman what they ever did for us and you would probably get a shrug and a wave at, well, everything. Put the same question to a flood-risk engineer, though, and the answer turns oddly specific: a startling amount…
Posted on 11th August, 2026
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Skinningrove Flood Alleviation Scheme: £13m Defences Begin in 2026

Construction has started on the Skinningrove flood alleviation scheme, a £13 million Environment Agency project, delivered with Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, that will protect more than 100 homes in the coastal village by 2028. At its heart is a…
Posted on 10th August, 2026
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Flood risk and drainage in the planning process: where they fit at every stage

If you are applying for planning permission for the first time, the part most likely to catch you out is not the design or the neighbours. It is flood risk and drainage in the planning process. Flooding and surface water…
Posted on 6th August, 2026
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
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Flood Risk Assessment and Drainage Strategy: Do You Need Both?

Most applications that need one of these documents need the other too. A flood risk assessment and a drainage strategy answer different questions: the first asks whether the site floods and whether your development makes flooding worse somewhere else, the…
Posted on 4th August, 2026
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
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Flood Risk and Drainage for EV Charging Infrastructure: What Developers Need to Know

There were 119,080 public chargers on the UK network on 1 April 2026, and 27,372 of them were rated 50kW or above. Almost all of it went in on land nobody picked for its flood characteristics: retail car parks, filling-station…
Posted on 30th July, 2026
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Can a Planning Condition Make You Fix a Flood Problem You Didn’t Cause?

Almost every developer who has taken a drainage condition through to discharge has met some version of this. The site floods. The gardens next door flood. The culvert downstream has been surcharging since long before anyone applied for anything. And…
Posted on 29th July, 2026
, in NPPF 
, in PPG 
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Shoreline Management Plans Explained: Hold the Line, Managed Realignment and No Active Intervention

England's coast runs to roughly 6,000km, and nearly all of it is covered by a shoreline management plan: the document that decides whether a stretch of shoreline gets defended, left alone, or allowed to move. A shoreline management plan (SMP)…
Posted on 27th July, 2026
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Erosion of trust: the government’s own words versus its coastal erosion grant

There is no coastal erosion compensation in the UK. If the sea takes your home, there is no insurance payout and no statutory compensation for the land or the building. Until 15 July 2026 there was a demolition grant that…
Posted on 24th July, 2026
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Flood Risk Assessment for a Care Home, Children’s Home or Supported Living

A flood risk assessment for a care home, children's home or supported living scheme is needed wherever the site sits in Flood Zone 2 or 3, and increasingly in Flood Zone 1 as well. The classification these uses take is…
Posted on 23rd July, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Sea Level Rise and Planning: Why 2100 Is No Longer the End of the Story

For most of UK practice, sea level rise and planning meet at a single tidy horizon: the end of this century. Flood risk assessments run their allowances out to the 2120s, defence schemes are appraised on similar timescales, and almost…
Posted on 22nd July, 2026
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Ground Investigation for Drainage and Flood Risk: What a Planning Application Needs

A ground investigation establishes what lies beneath a site: the soils, the rock under them, the depth of any made ground, and where the water sits. Drainage, foundations and earthworks can then be designed against measured conditions instead of assumed…
Posted on 20th July, 2026
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The British Geological Survey explained: what BGS data tells you about a site

The British Geological Survey is the UK's national geological survey and the public custodian of its geoscience records: a research centre of the Natural Environment Research Council, founded in 1835, holding the national geological map and more than a million…
Posted on 16th July, 2026
, in GIS 
, in SuDS 
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Building Regulations Part H: Foul Water Explained

Building Regulations Part H is the part of the building rules that governs foul water drainage: how the used water from a building's toilets, sinks, baths and appliances is carried away safely. If you are building, extending or converting anything…
Posted on 15th July, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Discharge of Planning Conditions: Process, Timescales and Costs (2026)

Discharge of planning conditions is the formal step of asking your local planning authority to confirm, in writing, that a condition attached to your planning permission has been satisfied. In planning terms it is an “application for approval of details…
Posted on 14th July, 2026
, in NPPF 
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What Is a CON29DW Report? The Drainage and Water Search Explained

A CON29DW report is the official drainage and water search a conveyancer orders during a property purchase. Compiled from the water company's own records, it answers 26 standardised enquiries about how a property connects to the public water and sewer…
Posted on 10th July, 2026
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The SuDS Hierarchy Explained

The SuDS hierarchy is the order in which a development has to try to get rid of its surface water: reuse it first, then let it soak into the ground, then send it to a watercourse, then a surface water…
Posted on 9th July, 2026
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Why Does Rain Stop Play at Wimbledon? The Science of Grass Court Drainage

Every Wimbledon has the same ritual. A few spots of rain, the umpire calls a halt, and within seconds the ground staff are sprinting the covers across the grass. It looks like an overreaction on a warm July afternoon. It…
Posted on 8th July, 2026
, in SuDS 
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How Football Pitch Drainage Works: Lessons from the 2026 World Cup

Watch a World Cup match in a downpour and the ball still runs true. There are no puddles on the halfway line, no spray kicking up at every pass. That is not luck. Football pitch drainage is a piece of…
Posted on 7th July, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Romsey Flood Alleviation Scheme: How New Defences Are Reducing Flood Risk in 2026

The Romsey flood alleviation scheme has just been strengthened again. In May 2026 the Environment Agency finished raising Stockbridge Road near Timsbury by around 40 centimetres and rebuilt the flood defence at a nearby weed-recovery compound: the latest step in…
Posted on 6th July, 2026
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Do building control and planning talk to each other? Drainage, SuDS and the gap between them

A building control officer tells you the simplest thing to do is run the surface water into the sewer. Your planning condition says infiltration first, greenfield runoff rates, attenuation for a one-in-100-year storm. Both cannot be right, and only one…
Posted on 3rd July, 2026
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Flood Performance Certificates: What They Are and When They Start

A flood performance certificate (FPC) is a planned rating of how well a home keeps floodwater out and how quickly it recovers when water gets in, in the way an Energy Performance Certificate rates energy use. Flood Re confirmed on…
Posted on 3rd July, 2026
, in PFR 
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Retrospective Planning Permission: The 2026 Guide

Retrospective planning permission is planning permission applied for after building work has already started or finished. It is made under Section 73A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It is then judged in exactly the same way as…
Posted on 2nd July, 2026
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Nutrient Neutrality in Planning: Catchments, Budgets and Credits

Nutrient neutrality is a legal test that prevents a local planning authority granting permission unless the extra nitrogen or phosphorus a development would send to a protected river, estuary or wetland is cancelled out. It is not a policy consideration…
Posted on 30th June, 2026
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What Is a SuDS Proforma and When Is It Required?

A SuDS proforma — also called a drainage proforma or sustainable drainage proforma — is a standardised summary form that goes in with a sustainable drainage strategy on a planning application. It sets out the key drainage information in a…
Posted on 26th June, 2026
, in SuDS 
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What is Water Neutrality? The 2026 Position for Planning

Water neutrality is a planning requirement that a development must not increase the total amount of water taken from the environment for public supply across a defined area. The extra demand created by new homes or buildings has to be…
Posted on 24th June, 2026
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Climate Whiplash: What New UK River Research Means for Flood and Drought Risk

Climate whiplash, the abrupt swing between flood and drought as the climate warms, is set to become more common across the UK, according to major new research led by the University of East Anglia's Tyndall Centre. The study modelled almost…
Posted on 19th June, 2026
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Sequential test, exception test and the planning balance: lessons from the Yatton judgment

When a flood risk scheme fails the sequential test, does the decision end there? The High Court has now answered plainly. In *North Somerset District Council v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government* [2026] EWHC 1430 (Admin),…
Posted on 18th June, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Why the Somerset Levels flood — and what £50m will (and won’t) fix

The Somerset Levels flood because they are a low-lying former wetland, much of which sits at or below the level of the rivers and tides meant to drain it. In a wet winter, water arrives faster than the catchment can…
Posted on 17th June, 2026
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The Four Pillars of SuDS Explained: Quantity, Quality, Amenity & Biodiversity

The four pillars of SuDS are water quantity, water quality, amenity and biodiversity — the four objectives a well-designed sustainable drainage system is meant to deliver at the same time. They come from the CIRIA SuDS Manual (C753) and now…
Posted on 16th June, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Permeable Paving for Planning Applications: When It Works and When It Doesn’t

Permeable paving is one of the most common SuDS features used in drainage strategies for planning applications, and on the right site it is one of the most useful. It lets rainfall pass through the surface into a stone sub-base…
Posted on 15th June, 2026
, in LLFA 
, in SuDS 
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Leaky Dams and Flood Risk: What They Do, Where They Work, and What They Can’t Fix

Anyone who has watched the latest series of Clarkson's Farm will have seen Jeremy Clarkson wading into a stream at Diddly Squat to build what he gleefully describes, after a bit of reading on the government's website, as "large, leaky,…
Posted on 13th June, 2026
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What Is a Critical Drainage Area? Planning and FRA Rules for 2026

A critical drainage area is land where surface water runoff, drainage capacity or overland flow routes are sensitive enough that the planning authority wants flood risk settled before permission is granted, not after. If your site sits inside one, it…
Posted on 12th June, 2026
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Sea level rise in the UK: how much, how fast, and what it means for coastal flood risk

Sea level rise around the UK has stopped being a projection to argue over. It is a measured record. Mean sea level around these islands has risen by about 20.1 cm since 1901, and roughly two-thirds of that rise has…
Posted on 10th June, 2026
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Residual Flood Risk Explained: How It’s Assessed and Managed

Residual flood risk is the risk left over after defences, drainage and mitigation have done what they can. No scheme removes risk entirely. A defended site still floods if a barrier is overtopped, if a defence breaches, or if a…
Posted on 9th June, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Long Term Flood Risk Map: What It Shows and How to Read It

The long term flood risk map is the Environment Agency's public service for England. It shows the chance of flooding at a location from rivers and the sea, surface water, reservoirs and, where the data exists, groundwater, reported in four…
Posted on 5th June, 2026
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Can You Build a House on Stilts in a Flood Zone? Floodable Voids Explained

Yes, you can build a house on stilts in a flood zone in England, and a floodable void is the engineering that lets you do it. A floodable void is an open space beneath a building that floodwater flows into,…
Posted on 4th June, 2026
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Water Table and Groundwater Flood Maps in the UK: How to Check a Site

There is no single official water table map for the UK, and no national groundwater flood map either. Rivers and the sea have both. Groundwater has neither. What exists instead is a scatter of separate datasets, each built for a…
Posted on 2nd June, 2026
, in BGS 
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Surface Water Flooding and Planning: A Complete Guide for Developers

Surface water is the most widespread source of flood risk in England, and the August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework has made how you handle it decisive at the planning stage. Getting surface water flooding and planning right now turns…
Posted on 1st June, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Do SuDS count towards biodiversity net gain? What actually scores

Yes, sustainable drainage systems can count towards biodiversity net gain, but only the parts of a SuDS scheme that create real, lasting habitat, and only for what that habitat is genuinely worth. A planted basin, a wet pond or a…
Posted on 27th May, 2026
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
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BREEAM Flood Risk Assessments Explained

BREEAM is the leading sustainability standard for UK buildings, and how a scheme handles flood risk is one of the things it scores. A BREEAM flood risk assessment is a site-specific study of a development's flood risk, written so the…
Posted on 25th May, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Groundwater Flood Risk and Planning Applications: What Developers Need to Submit

Key takeaways If your site needs a Flood Risk Assessment, that FRA must assess groundwater — it is not optional under the NPPF and Planning Practice Guidance. The national flood maps do not show groundwater. Screen with the BGS Susceptibility…
Posted on 22nd May, 2026
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Can AI Write a Flood Risk Assessment?

Ask any chatbot to write a flood risk assessment and it will hand you a confident, well-formatted document in seconds. That is the easy part. It is also the misleading part, because a flood risk assessment is not really a…
Posted on 20th May, 2026
, in AI 
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EA SWIM Explained: Building a Business Case for Small-Scale SuDS Investment

The Surface Water Investment Model (SWIM) is an Environment Agency approach, published on 18 May 2026, for building a business case to invest in many small sustainable drainage features across a wide area, rather than one large scheme, so their…
Posted on 19th May, 2026
, in SuDS 
, in SWIM 
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Property Flood Resilience and Planning: The 2025 FloodReady Action Plan, the CIRIA Code and Build Back Better

Property flood resilience (PFR) has moved from the margins of flood policy towards the centre of it. The 2025 FloodReady action plan, the maturing CIRIA Code of Practice, and insurance-side schemes like Build Back Better have made the idea of…
Posted on 14th May, 2026
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Padel Court Drainage and Flood Risk: What the Planning System Actually Asks For

Padel court drainage is the part of a padel planning application that almost nobody scopes, because the court is built to drain and everyone assumes that settles the question. It does not. The LTA's own construction guidance specifies a porous…
Posted on 12th May, 2026
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
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The Flood Knowledge Gap Between Communities and Institutions

In 1724, a local historian described one Berkshire village as "a low and watery place" where "water is a dominant theme … with disastrous floods, both within and beyond living memory." More than two centuries later, that village still requires…
Posted on 11th May, 2026
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EA River Modelling Technical Standards (2026): What Flood Risk Assessments Must Demonstrate

Hydraulic modelling sits behind almost every detailed flood risk assessment, and the Environment Agency sets the standard for how those models are built and reviewed. The EA river modelling technical standards define what a credible model looks like and what…
Posted on 8th May, 2026
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Do you need a flood risk assessment to convert a house into flats?

Usually, yes. A flood risk assessment when converting a house into flats is required wherever the site sits in Flood Zone 2 or 3, and in a growing number of Flood Zone 1 cases too. Flats are still homes, so…
Posted on 7th May, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Nature-Based Solutions and Flood Risk: What the 2026 NPPF Now Requires

Nature-based solutions have moved from advocacy into planning policy. The National Planning Policy Framework published on 17 August 2026 defines them, asks development plans to make as much use of natural flood management as possible, and asks development proposals themselves…
Posted on 5th May, 2026
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Surface Water Flood Risk in England’s Towns and Cities: What the Data Now Shows

Surface water flood risk has become the defining flood problem in England's towns and cities. New national data shows that most homes now judged to be at high flood risk are urban, and the cause is rarely a river bursting…
Posted on 29th April, 2026
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Fens 2100+ explained: what the Environment Agency’s evidence actually says

Fens 2100+ is the Environment Agency's long-term flood risk and water management programme for the Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire Fens, run in partnership with Internal Drainage Boards, local authorities and water companies. In April 2026 it published a summary baseline report,…
Posted on 28th April, 2026
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Sponge cities in the UK: what the idea now means for planning and drainage

Sponge cities are urban areas built to absorb, store and slowly release rainfall instead of piping it away as fast as possible. The phrase came out of China a decade ago. In Britain it has mostly been discussed as something…
Posted on 24th April, 2026
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From 6-Hour Warning to Spade in Ground: What SWFFIP Means for Planning

On 16th April the Flood Forecasting Centre published the results of SWFFIP, the Surface Water Flood Forecasting Improvement Project. The programme brings two models into fuller operational use: the Surface Water Flooding Hazard Impact Model (SWFHIM), which has been running…
Posted on 21st April, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Are Flood Maps Accurate? Why a Property Can Flood When the Map Says Low Risk (and Vice Versa)

Are flood maps accurate? At the scale they are built for, meaning a region, a catchment or a whole postcode, broadly yes. At the scale that matters when you are buying a house or designing a single building, often not.…
Posted on 17th April, 2026
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Groundwater Monitoring for Planning: Requirements, Timing and Delays

Groundwater monitoring for planning is the process of measuring how the water table beneath a site rises and falls over the seasons, usually to prove that an infiltration-based drainage scheme will actually work. It is most often needed where Sustainable…
Posted on 14th April, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Source Control in UK Drainage: SuDS at Plot Level

Source control means managing rainfall as close as possible to where it lands, before it has a chance to run off into the wider drainage network. It sits at the very top of the SuDS hierarchy, and in principle it…
Posted on 9th April, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Why Some Floods Get Investigated and Others Don’t: Section 19 Reports Explained

A Section 19 flood investigation is the report a lead local flood authority publishes after a flood it has decided is serious enough to look into. It records what flooded, why it flooded, which authorities held responsibilities, and what each…
Posted on 7th April, 2026
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The barn or the field? Flood risk for holiday lets, cabins and farm diversification

A holiday let flood risk assessment is required for any permanent holiday unit in Flood Zone 2 or 3, and for units in Flood Zone 1 on a site of a hectare or more, in a critical drainage area, or…
Posted on 6th April, 2026
, in NPPF 
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How flood defence works can raise groundwater, and who pays for the damage

Flood defences are built to keep water out. Sometimes they change where the water goes instead. The relationship between flood defence works and groundwater has now been tested twice in the Upper Tribunal, and both decisions went against the Environment…
Posted on 26th March, 2026
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LLFA Objection to a Planning Application: Why Drainage Strategies Are Rejected and How to Resolve It

An LLFA objection to a planning application is one of the most common hurdles a development can hit, and one of the most resolvable. It rarely means the scheme is unacceptable in principle. It means the Lead Local Flood Authority,…
Posted on 23rd March, 2026
, in LLFA 
, in SuDS 
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Environment Agency Objection to Your Planning Application (Flood Risk): How to Resolve It

An Environment Agency objection to a planning application on flood risk grounds is unsettling, but it is rarely the end of a scheme. In most cases it means the flood risk evidence in front of the local planning authority is…
Posted on 23rd March, 2026
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The Land Use Framework and flood risk: what it actually changes

The Land Use Framework is the government's first national statement of how England's land should be shared between housing, farming, energy and nature. Defra published it on 18 March 2026, and it is built on flood figures that ought to…
Posted on 20th March, 2026
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Environment Agency Product 4 Flood Data: How to Request It

Environment Agency Product 4 flood data is the detailed dataset most Flood Risk Assessments in England are built on, and it is requested free through the Flood Map for Planning service with a statutory 20-working-day deadline attached. This guide covers…
Posted on 20th March, 2026
, in GIS 
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£1.4bn Flood Defence Funding 2026/27 Explained

The UK government has announced £1.4 billion of flood defence funding for 2026 / 27, supporting more than 600 schemes across England, as set out in the official £1.4bn flood investment announcement. The funding is intended to reduce flood risk…
Posted on 18th March, 2026
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The great floods of 1947: 690,000 acres under water, and what the record still doesn’t show

In March 1947, rapid snowmelt onto ground that had been frozen for six weeks produced the largest river flood England has seen in the last hundred years. At the peak, the Minister of Agriculture told the Commons, 690,000 acres were…
Posted on 13th March, 2026
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Why a Conveyancing Flood Report Won’t Pass Planning (And What Will)

A conveyancing flood report will not pass planning, because it answers a different question from the one a planning authority is asking. A conveyancing flood report screens an existing property for a buyer or a lender. A planning flood risk…
Posted on 10th March, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Flood Risk Vulnerability Classification: The 2026 NPPF Guide (Annex F, Table 2)

Flood risk vulnerability classification is the system in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) that sorts every type of development by how badly flooding would affect it: by consequence, not probability. It places each use in one of five categories,…
Posted on 2nd March, 2026
, in NPPF 
 | 

Acqua alta: how Venice lives with flooding, and what the UK takes from it

Acqua alta is the tidal flooding that covers parts of Venice several dozen times a year, and the city stays open through almost all of it. The reason is not the barrier at the lagoon mouth. It is that the…
Posted on 23rd February, 2026
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New Homes in Flood Risk Areas: Is 11% Really Evidence of Planning Failure?

On its own, the one-in-nine figure does not prove that planning has failed. When Aviva reported that 11% of new homes in flood risk areas were built where flooding is a medium or high risk, the headline landed as a…
Posted on 23rd February, 2026
, in NPPF 
 | 

Types of Flooding Explained: Sources of Flood Risk

Flooding can arise from several different sources, and understanding the types of flooding that may affect a site is an essential part of assessing flood risk for property, land and development proposals. While many people associate flooding primarily with rivers…
Posted on 19th February, 2026
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What Is Infrastructure Flooding? Causes, Risks and Planning Implications

Flooding can also occur when water escapes from man-made infrastructure such as canals, water mains, culverts or other engineered systems. This type of flooding is often referred to as infrastructure flooding or artificial source flooding. Infrastructure flooding occurs when water…
Posted on 18th February, 2026
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What Is Reservoir Flooding? Causes, Risks and Planning Implications

Flooding can occur from the failure or overtopping of large raised water bodies such as reservoirs. This type of flooding is known as reservoir flooding. Reservoir flooding occurs when water stored behind a reservoir dam or embankment is suddenly released…
Posted on 18th February, 2026
, in Dam 
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Sewer Flooding: Causes, Responsibility and What Buyers Can Check

Sewer flooding happens when wastewater escapes from a drain or sewer: into a building, out across gardens and land, or back up through toilets and sinks that can no longer empty. Heavy rain overloading the network is the usual trigger,…
Posted on 18th February, 2026
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What Is Groundwater Flooding? Causes, Risks and Planning Implications

Groundwater flooding happens when water rises up from beneath the ground rather than spilling in from a river or running across the surface. After long, wet periods the water table — the level below which the ground is saturated —…
Posted on 18th February, 2026
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What Is Tidal (Sea) Flooding? Causes, Risks and Planning Implications

Flooding in coastal areas is often caused by the sea rather than rivers or rainfall. This type of flooding is known as tidal flooding, sometimes referred to as coastal flooding or sea flooding. Tidal flooding occurs when sea water moves…
Posted on 18th February, 2026
, in Sea 
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What Is Fluvial (River) Flooding? Causes, Risks and Planning Implications

Flooding is often associated with rivers overflowing their banks, and this is known as fluvial flooding, sometimes referred to as river flooding. Fluvial flooding occurs when the volume of water flowing through a river channel exceeds its capacity. When this…
Posted on 18th February, 2026
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What Is Pluvial (Surface Water) Flooding? Causes, Risks and Planning Implications

Surface water flooding, also called pluvial flooding, happens when rainfall lands faster than the ground can absorb it and faster than drains and watercourses can carry it away, so water runs across the surface and collects in low points. That…
Posted on 18th February, 2026
, in SuDS 
 | 

Still in a Flood Zone After New Flood Defences? What Actually Changes

A new flood wall goes up, an embankment is raised, a storage basin is finished after years of consultation. Then you open the map and nothing has moved. If you are still in a flood zone after flood defences have…
Posted on 16th February, 2026
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Why Is My House in a Flood Zone if It Has Never Flooded?

"Why is my house in a flood zone? We have lived here for years and it has never flooded." Being never flooded but in a flood zone is not a contradiction, and it is not a mistake on the map.…
Posted on 16th February, 2026
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Jubilee River Flood Relief Channel: Route, Operation and Downstream Risk

The Jubilee River is an 11.6 km flood relief channel that takes water out of the River Thames at Taplow, carries it around Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton, and hands it back to the Thames between Eton and Datchet. It opened…
Posted on 12th February, 2026
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What is the River Thames Scheme, and why is it delayed?

The River Thames Scheme is a planned flood relief project on the lower Thames between Egham and Teddington, led by the Environment Agency and Surrey County Council. It would cut two new flood channels through Runnymede and Spelthorne and upgrade…
Posted on 9th February, 2026
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Fowlea Brook flood scheme: what £12.6m has changed in Stoke-on-Trent

The Fowlea Brook flood scheme is a £12.6 million Environment Agency project, completed in February 2026, that has rebuilt the defences along a constrained urban watercourse running through the centre of Stoke-on-Trent. It reduces flood risk to 333 homes and…
Posted on 6th February, 2026
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How Increasing Rainfall Is Changing Flood Risk in the UK

Flooding across the UK is becoming more frequent, more widespread and easier to trigger, and increasing rainfall is the reason. The shift is driven less by wilder storms than by a wetter atmosphere and wetter autumns and winters, which together…
Posted on 5th February, 2026
, in SuDS 
 | 

Flood Risk at Britain’s Landmarks: What Six Famous Sites Reveal

Flood risk at the UK’s most famous landmarks is rising, and the pattern it reveals matters far beyond the sites themselves. In its Building Future Communities 2025 report, Aviva uses a handful of Britain’s best-known places — Hampton Court Palace,…
Posted on 4th February, 2026
, in Data 
, in SuDS 
 | 

Clydach Terrace, Ynysybwl: How 14 Flood-Prone Homes Fell Outside the Flood Defence System

Clydach Terrace in Ynysybwl, Rhondda Cynon Taf, is a row of terraced homes on the valley floor beside the Nant Clydach. On 2nd February 2026 the council's cabinet agreed to buy 14 of them for about £2.57 million, demolish them…
Posted on 3rd February, 2026
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Nine hours of warning: the 1953 North Sea flood and the failure that killed 307 people

The 1953 North Sea flood killed 307 people in England on the night of Saturday 31 January and the morning of Sunday 1 February. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in modern British history. Sea defences failed in 1,200 separate…
Posted on 31st January, 2026
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Storm Chandra flooding hits UK weeks after Storm Goretti

Storm Chandra is causing widespread flooding across the UK and Ireland, marking the second major flooding event of 2026 before the end of January. Flooding and disruption have continued into Wednesday, with impacts persisting across several regions. The storm follows…
Posted on 28th January, 2026
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The CIRIA SuDS Manual (C753): What It Is and How to Use It in 2026

The CIRIA SuDS Manual (C753) is the UK's principal design guide for sustainable drainage systems: 968 pages covering how SuDS should be planned, designed, built, operated and maintained. CIRIA published it in November 2015 to replace the original 2007 manual,…
Posted on 26th January, 2026
, in SuDS 
 | 

Why Lincolnshire Is Trialling a New Approach to Flood Warnings

In parts of Lincolnshire, flooding is a familiar experience that does not always come with a warning. Streets flood, gardens fill, groundwater emerges, and yet many locations sit outside the areas where the national warning service is designed to operate.…
Posted on 23rd January, 2026
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Climate Change Allowances for Flood Risk Assessments: Which One Do You Use?

Climate change allowances are the uplift figures the Environment Agency expects you to build into a flood risk assessment so a development stays safe for its whole lifetime rather than only on the day it opens. There are four of…
Posted on 21st January, 2026
, in NPPF 
 | 

When Do You Need a Flood Risk Assessment (FRA)?

Do I need a flood risk assessment? For most people the answer turns on two things: where the site sits on the Environment Agency’s flood map, and what you plan to do with it. A flood risk assessment, or FRA,…
Posted on 19th January, 2026
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What the Gladman Judgment Means for the Sequential Test

Flood risk, planning appeals and the High Court The High Court’s judgment in Gladman Developments Ltd v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and Lancaster City Council (15 January 2026) is an important decision on flood risk,…
Posted on 16th January, 2026
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Does Flood Risk Affect House Prices? How Much, and for How Long

Flood risk is priced into the UK housing market, and in June 2026 the shape of that pricing changed. Research published in Nature's Communications Earth & Environment tracked 27 million property sales across England over 28 years and found that…
Posted on 16th January, 2026
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Guildford Flood Alleviation Scheme: flood risk, defences and what happens next

The Guildford Flood Alleviation Scheme is a long-term project by the Environment Agency, Guildford Borough Council and Surrey County Council to reduce flood risk to Guildford town centre from the River Wey. It proposes more than two kilometres of new…
Posted on 14th January, 2026
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Construction stage flood risk: the gap between planning permission and practical completion

Construction stage flood risk is the flood risk a development creates, or is exposed to, between the day permission is granted and the day the scheme is finished. It is the phase in which temporary access roads cross watercourses, ground…
Posted on 13th January, 2026
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Flood risk before buying a property: how to check and understand it

Flood risk is one of the few things you can investigate properly before you commit to buying, and one of the most expensive to discover afterwards. To check flood risk before buying a house, start with the free government flood…
Posted on 12th January, 2026
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How AI Could Improve Flood Risk Management

Artificial intelligence is starting to reshape flood risk management, though not in the way the headlines suggest. AI in flood risk management works best as a support layer: it sharpens forecasting, widens warning coverage and speeds up the handling of…
Posted on 5th January, 2026
, in AI 
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
 | 

Below Standard Flood Defences: Protected on Paper, Vulnerable in Practice

Flood defence condition is measured against a target, not against whether a wall is still standing. On 1 April 2026 the Environment Agency reported that 93% of its flood risk assets in high consequence systems were in the required condition,…
Posted on 24th December, 2025
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Shropshire Canal Failure: What the Whitchurch Canal Breach Means for Flood Risk and Planning

A canal breach is the sudden failure of the bank or bed that holds a canal's water, and it matters for planning because most of Britain's canals sit above the land around them. When one gives way, the water does…
Posted on 23rd December, 2025
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Flooding Across England and Wales Ahead of Christmas 2025

In the weeks leading up to Christmas 2025, large parts of England and Wales flooded repeatedly. It was not one storm. Rain fell on ground that was already full. In many places the water then sat there, long after the…
Posted on 22nd December, 2025
, in NPPF 
 | 

Soils, Flooding and Resilience | World Soil Day

World Soil Day, observed each year on 5th December, highlights the critical importance of soils to environmental systems that are often taken for granted. Led by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization through the Global Soil Partnership, it focuses global…
Posted on 5th December, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

Who Rescues You in a Flood? How England’s Flood Response Actually Works

When floodwater reaches the doorstep, flood rescue in England is carried out by whoever is closest, trained and available — usually the local fire and rescue service, supported by volunteer boat crews, Coastguard teams, the RNLI, mountain and lowland rescue…
Posted on 20th November, 2025
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Flood Map for Planning Wales: Flood Zones Explained

The Flood Map for Planning Wales is the official map used to assess flood risk in the Welsh planning system. Produced by Natural Resources Wales (NRW), it shows where land is at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea, and…
Posted on 14th November, 2025
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TAN 15 Explained: Flood Risk and Development in Wales

Technical Advice Note 15 – Development, Flooding and Coastal Erosion (TAN 15) – is Welsh Government planning guidance that sets out how flood risk and coastal erosion must be addressed in the planning system in Wales. The current version came…
Posted on 12th November, 2025
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Shrewsbury Floods, Ironbridge and Bewdley: What 25 Years of Severn Defences Changed

Shrewsbury floods because the town sits inside a loop of the River Severn, on ground the river has always used, at the foot of a catchment that gathers rain across mid Wales. Ironbridge and Bewdley flood for the same reason…
Posted on 5th November, 2025
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York Flooding: Why the Ouse Rises, and What 25 Years of Defences Changed

York flooding is not a freak event. It is the predictable consequence of where the city was built: at the meeting point of two rivers, at the bottom of a catchment draining most of the Yorkshire Dales, on ground flat…
Posted on 5th November, 2025
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Runways Underwater: The 2000 Crawley and Gatwick Floods

The Crawley and Gatwick floods of November 2000 saw the Gatwick Stream and the wider Upper Mole catchment overwhelm homes, roads and even the runways at one of the country's busiest airports. They were one local chapter of the wettest…
Posted on 4th November, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

25 Years On: The Legacy of the Lewes Floods

The Lewes floods of October 2000 were among the most severe England has seen in living memory. On 12 October 2000, after the wettest autumn on record, the River Ouse overwhelmed the town in a matter of hours, inundating 613…
Posted on 3rd November, 2025
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Who Is Responsible for Managing Flood Risk in England?

Flooding in England can happen anywhere — from rivers, the sea, surface water, groundwater, sewers or even small streams that overflow after heavy rain. Because these sources of flooding behave differently, no single organisation is responsible for everything. Instead, flood…
Posted on 31st October, 2025
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Sediment ponds: what the Loughborough study shows

Sediment ponds are small excavated basins, often no bigger than five metres square, that hold back muddy runoff at the edge of a field so the soil it carries settles out before it reaches a ditch or a river. Research…
Posted on 31st October, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

Paving Over Gardens: Flood Risk and the Rules You Need to Know

Paving over gardens is one of the quiet drivers of urban flooding in the UK. When grass and planting are replaced with concrete, tarmac or block paving, rainwater can no longer soak into the ground. It runs off into drains…
Posted on 30th October, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

Flood Resilience in England: A Wake-Up Call

Flooding in England is no longer a localised hazard — it is a national systems challenge. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee’s latest report, Flood Resilience in England (HC 550, October 2025), delivers a blunt assessment: the country remains…
Posted on 29th October, 2025
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How to Drive Through Flood Water

Knowing how to drive through flood water safely comes down to one rule above all others: if you can avoid it, don't drive through it at all. The Environment Agency advises drivers not to enter water that is moving or…
Posted on 28th October, 2025
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Integrating Rainwater Harvesting into SuDS Design

Rainwater harvesting in SuDS design sits in an odd position. Collection for non-potable use is Priority 1 in the national discharge hierarchy, ahead of infiltration, a watercourse and any surface water or combined sewer. Yet on most planning applications the…
Posted on 24th October, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

Green SuDS: Nature-Based Drainage in Modern Planning

Green SuDS are nature-based drainage features — swales, rain gardens, basins, green roofs and wetlands — that manage rainwater using vegetation and soil rather than buried pipes and tanks. Across England's planning system they have become the preferred form of…
Posted on 22nd October, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

NAFRA2 and Home Sales: Rising Flood Awareness

When the Environment Agency released its latest National Assessment of Flood Risk for England (NAFRA2) in early 2025, the updated dataset immediately began reshaping how flood risk is understood — and, increasingly, how property is bought and sold. Many homeowners…
Posted on 20th October, 2025
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What Is CIWEM? The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management Explained

If you have ever read a flood risk assessment or a drainage strategy and seen the letters MCIWEM or C.WEM after a consultant's name, you have already met CIWEM. It is the professional body that sits behind those letters, and…
Posted on 17th October, 2025
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Planning for Flood Risk: The NPPF Explained

The NPPF is the National Planning Policy Framework: the government's planning policy for England, which councils apply when they decide planning applications and prepare local plans. The current Framework was published on 17 August 2026 and replaces every edition issued…
Posted on 16th October, 2025
, in NPPF 
, in SuDS 
 | 

Planning is falling behind flood risk, says Aviva

Aviva’s Building future communities analysis presents a stark assessment of flood risk in England. By the middle of the century, millions more properties could be exposed to flooding, with risk increasingly driven by surface water flooding rather than rivers or…
Posted on 15th October, 2025
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Defra Confirms £10.5bn Flood Defence Funding Overhaul

In April, Defra’s consultation proposing a major overhaul of England’s flood funding system was launched, aiming to simplify access to investment and accelerate protection for communities most at risk. That consultation has now concluded, and the government has confirmed that…
Posted on 14th October, 2025
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Flood or Escape of Water? How UK Insurers Tell the Difference

A burst pipe in the loft and a river in the living room can do much the same damage, and still be paid under different parts of the same home insurance policy. Escape of water is the insurance term for…
Posted on 13th October, 2025
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Early SuDS Planning: CIRIA C823F and What the 2026 NPPF Now Requires

Early SuDS planning means settling the surface water question at land acquisition and site appraisal, before roads, levels and plot positions are fixed. Since 17 August 2026 that is no longer only good practice. CIRIA's guide Enabling development: Getting SuDS…
Posted on 6th October, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

Does Tree Planting Reduce Flood Risk? What the UK Evidence Actually Shows

Does tree planting reduce flood risk? Yes, but the size of the effect depends almost entirely on scale, and the honest answer changes depending on how far back you stand. Measure a woodland hillside against the grazed field next to…
Posted on 26th September, 2025
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Floods in a Drought: Why Drought Causes Flooding in the UK

Floods in a drought sound like a contradiction. They are not. When soil has been baked hard for weeks it sheds rain rather than absorbing it, so one summer downpour can put water across roads and through doorways while rivers,…
Posted on 11th September, 2025
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Flood Map for Planning: What It Shows and How to Use It

The Flood Map for Planning is the Environment Agency's official online map of flood risk from rivers and the sea across England, used in the planning system to decide whether flooding needs to be assessed for a site. It is…
Posted on 29th August, 2025
, in NPPF 
 | 

Flood Zones Explained: Zone 1, 2 and 3 (England)

Flood zones are how the planning system in England describes the chance of a site flooding from rivers or the sea. They sort land into Flood Zone 1, 2 or 3 (with Zone 3 split into 3a and 3b), from…
Posted on 28th August, 2025
, in NPPF 
 | 

Declaring Flooding When Selling a House: TA6 Rules, Real Cases and How to Check

If a home you are selling has ever flooded, you have to say so. Declaring flooding when selling a house in England and Wales is part of answering the TA6 Property Information Form, which asks whether any part of the…
Posted on 27th August, 2025
, in Law 
, in TA6 
 | 

Ofwat Abolished: What the Cunliffe Review Means for Planning

The Cunliffe review made 88 recommendations for the water sector in England and Wales, and the one everybody remembers is the abolition of Ofwat. Fourteen months on, the picture is more mixed than the headlines suggested. Government has accepted the…
Posted on 21st July, 2025
, in IWC 
, in SuDS 
 | 

Camp Mystic and the UK: Could a Flood Like Texas Happen Here?

The Camp Mystic flood of 4 July 2025 killed 28 people at a single riverside summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, 25 of them children. Two official investigations have since reported, and both reached the same uncomfortable conclusion: the…
Posted on 10th July, 2025
, in FEMA 
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Flood Forecasting Centre vs the Environment Agency: Who Forecasts, Who Warns

The Flood Forecasting Centre forecasts flooding. The Environment Agency warns the public about it. Two organisations, two jobs, and a boundary almost nobody outside the responder community can draw. It matters more than it sounds. A planning condition can hang…
Posted on 8th July, 2025
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Mayor of London Issues Urgent Basement Flash Flood Warning

As this year’s London Climate Action Week came to a close, the Mayor of London issued a direct and sobering warning to thousands of residents living in basement flats: be prepared for flash floods. As Sadiq Khan put it, “The…
Posted on 1st July, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

Thames Water Crisis 2026: Sewage, Capacity and Flood Risk by Area

The Thames Water crisis has moved a long way since the record fine of May 2025, and the part that matters most to anyone building in the Thames Valley is no longer the debt. It is capacity. Ofwat's investigation found…
Posted on 28th May, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

Planning with EA Flood Risk Standing Advice

The Environment Agency's flood risk standing advice is national guidance that lets a local planning authority in England decide a planning application on flood risk without consulting the Environment Agency case by case. Written out in full it is the…
Posted on 23rd May, 2025
, in NPPF 
 | 

Why Hosepipe Bans Happen, and What Planning Can Do

Hosepipe bans happen when a water company decides it is facing a serious shortage of water for distribution and uses a statutory power to prohibit a list of outdoor uses. The trigger is rarely one dry month. It is the…
Posted on 19th May, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme (OFAS) Approved

The Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme (OFAS) is a £176 million flood defence project, led by the Environment Agency, that will reduce flood risk to more than 1,600 homes and businesses across Oxford and the surrounding villages. At its heart is…
Posted on 16th May, 2025
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VE Day and the Weaponisation of Flooding in the Netherlands

In the closing weeks of the Second World War, as Nazi Germany faced certain defeat, its occupying forces in the Netherlands turned water against the people it had once kept safe. The deliberate breaching of dikes and the release of…
Posted on 8th May, 2025
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Ordinary Watercourse Consent (OWC): The Complete Guide

Ordinary watercourse consent (OWC) is the written permission you need under Section 23 of the Land Drainage Act 1991 before carrying out any work that would obstruct or alter the flow of an ordinary watercourse: a stream, ditch, culvert or…
Posted on 28th February, 2025
, in EA 
, in IDB 
, in OWC 
 | 

Foul, Surface Water and Combined Sewers: How to Tell Them Apart

A foul sewer carries wastewater to treatment. A surface water sewer carries rainwater to a watercourse or an outfall. A combined sewer carries both in one pipe, and spills to a watercourse through a storm overflow when it fills. Those…
Posted on 25th February, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

London’s Super Sewer in Numbers: The Tideway Tunnel

London's super sewer captured 18.4 million tonnes of sewage in its first full year of operation, against a pre-tunnel baseline of roughly 39 million tonnes reaching the tidal Thames in an average year. The Thames Tideway Tunnel runs 25 kilometres…
Posted on 17th February, 2025
, in SuDS 
 | 

Thames Barrier: Closures, Cost and Its Future

The Thames Barrier has closed 221 times for flood defence since it became operational in 1982, a figure the Environment Agency states as correct at 17 November 2025. Of those Thames Barrier closures, 119 held back a tidal surge from…
Posted on 14th February, 2025
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Natural Flood Management: EA Research Deep Dive & Analysis

Natural flood management (NFM) does work, but the honest answer is more useful than a simple yes. The Environment Agency's latest evidence shows that measures which slow, store and filter water across a catchment can measurably lower flood peaks, especially…
Posted on 13th February, 2025
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Natural Flood Management Schemes in the UK: How Real Projects Slow the Flow

Natural flood management schemes use woodland, wetlands, leaky dams and better-managed soils to slow and store rainwater across a catchment, taking the edge off flood peaks downstream. Across the UK, councils, rivers trusts and landowners now run dozens of these…
Posted on 3rd February, 2025
, in NFM 
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Flood Return Periods & Annual Probability Explained

A flood return period is the average length of time between floods of a given size at a given place. That sounds like a timetable, and it is not one. A "1-in-100-year flood" does not arrive once a century: it…
Posted on 20th December, 2024
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LiDAR Data in the UK: A Complete Guide for Flood Risk and Drainage

LiDAR data in the UK is free, national in coverage, and more widely misunderstood than any other dataset in flood risk assessment and drainage strategy practice. The Environment Agency publishes elevation models covering roughly 99% of England under the Open…
Posted on 15th November, 2024
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What is GIS? A UK Guide for Flood Risk and Drainage

GIS stands for geographic information system. It is software that holds map features and the data attached to them together, so that questions about a place can be answered by analysis instead of by eye. Anything with a location can…
Posted on 8th November, 2024
, in GIS 
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Flood Risk Activity Permits (FRAP): When You Need One, and When You Don’t

A flood risk activity permit (FRAP) is the environmental permit you need before working on, under, over or near a main river, a flood defence, a sea defence or a floodplain in England. The Environment Agency issues it under the…
Posted on 6th September, 2024
, in EA 
, in FRAP 
, in NRW 
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Main Rivers and Ordinary Watercourses: A Guide for Planning

Every river, stream, brook and ditch in England and Wales is legally either a main river or an ordinary watercourse, and the difference decides who regulates it, who maintains it, and whose consent you need before you build near it.…
Posted on 5th September, 2024
, in EA 
, in FRAP 
, in NRW 
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Boscastle Flood 2004: Causes, Impacts and What It Changed

On Monday 16 August 2004 a line of thunderstorms stalled over the moors above Boscastle and put more than 180 mm of rain into a catchment of barely 20 square kilometres. The Boscastle flood that followed destroyed four properties, flooded…
Posted on 16th August, 2024
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Which Football Stadiums Are at Risk of Flooding? The 2026 Picture

Two separate studies have counted the football stadiums at risk of flooding in England, and they disagree. Research for the Rapid Transition Alliance put 23 of the 92 league grounds in line for partial or total flooding every season by…
Posted on 30th November, 2023
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The Great Flood of 1968: what two floods taught UK flood risk practice

The Great Flood of 1968 is really two floods. In July, a single night of rain over the Mendips tore bridges out of the Chew Valley and killed seven people. Ten weeks later, in the middle of September, much of…
Posted on 14th September, 2023
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What to Do After a Flood: A UK Recovery Guide

Knowing what to do after a flood comes down to sequence. Make the building safe, record the damage for your insurer, get the water and silt out inside 24 to 48 hours, strip out and disinfect over the following weeks,…
Posted on 23rd August, 2019
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Beavers and Flood Risk: What Landowners and Developers Need to Know

Beavers and flood risk stopped being a curiosity the moment the law changed. England has had a licensed route to release beavers into the wild since February 2025, three projects are now running, and Natural England is working with around…
Posted on 19th February, 2018
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What Is a Weather Bomb? Explosive Cyclogenesis Explained

A weather bomb is the informal name for a storm whose central pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours, a process meteorologists call explosive cyclogenesis. The result is a deep, fast-developing area of low pressure that brings…
Posted on 22nd January, 2018
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Does Glastonbury flood? Why Worthy Farm turns to mud

Does Glastonbury flood? Yes, though almost never because a river burst its banks. Worthy Farm sits in a shallow valley on clay with a watercourse through the middle, and what turns the site to mud is rain arriving faster than…
Posted on 22nd June, 2017
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Amphibious houses in the UK: can you get one approved?

An amphibious house sits on ordinary foundations for most of its life. When floodwater arrives it rises inside a purpose-built dock and floats, held straight by vertical guide posts, then settles back as the water drops. Nobody moves out. Britain…
Posted on 1st March, 2017
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Communities Affected by Groundwater Flooding in the UK

Groundwater flooding is not spread evenly across the country. The areas affected by groundwater flooding cluster in a narrow band of communities sitting on or just downstream of the Chalk, and the same villages tend to flood again and again:…
Posted on 29th September, 2015
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How to protect your home from flooding: a UK homeowner’s guide

You cannot stop a river rising or a storm drain backing up. What you can decide is how much of that water reaches your rooms, and how much it costs you when it does. Knowing how to protect your home…
Posted on 25th September, 2015
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Building on Floodplains: A Developer’s Guide to the 2026 Rules

Building on floodplains is not banned in England, but whether a scheme gets consent comes down to three things: the flood zone the land sits in, the type of development proposed, and the strength of the flood risk evidence submitted…
Posted on 18th September, 2015
, in NPPF 
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