Property Flood Resilience and Planning: The 2025 FloodReady Action Plan, the CIRIA Code and Build Back Better

What is property flood resilience?

Property flood resilience is the set of measures that reduce the damage a flood does to a building and help it recover faster. It is different from flood defence, which tries to keep water away from a whole area, and from raising a site above the flood level. PFR works at the scale of the individual building, and it splits into two ideas:

On most sites the realistic aim is a blend of the two, set against the depth and duration of flooding the building could actually see. As a rule of thumb, keeping water out is appropriate for shallow flooding up to roughly 600mm. Beyond that, the water pressure acting on the structure becomes a concern in its own right, and the sensible approach shifts towards letting water in and out in a controlled way and recovering quickly, rather than resisting it. Duration matters as much as depth: a building that floods to ankle height for a week needs a different answer from one that floods to the same depth for an afternoon.

The 2025 FloodReady action plan: what it is and why it matters

The headline development of 2025 is FloodReady, an independent review of property flood resilience commissioned by the Environment Agency and reporting to the EA and Defra. It is the successor to the 2016 Bonfield property-level resilience action plan, and it takes a whole-system view: it looks at the PFR market, standards and consumer confidence, and at the roles of insurers, developers, manufacturers, social landlords, lenders and planners. Its terms of reference are explicit that it does not cover traditional flood defences or drainage, though it may comment on where those interact with property-level resilience.

For planning, two points stand out. First, the direction of travel is that PFR is effective and worthwhile in the right circumstances, but uptake is lower than it should be, and the barriers are standards, supply-chain capacity and consumer confidence rather than the technology itself. The gov.uk evaluation of the PFR grant scheme points the same way. Second, the review treats developers and planners as part of the solution, not bystanders. That matters because it strengthens the case for treating PFR as a legitimate part of managing residual risk: the risk that remains after the Sequential Test, the Exception Test and site-level mitigation have done their work.

A practical note on terminology. You will see the 2025 work described in various ways, including as a “Defra evidence report”. The substantive, citable item is the FloodReady review and its action plan, alongside the EA and Defra evidence behind it. Citing it accurately is worth the effort, because vague references are easy to pick apart.

Standards: the CIRIA Code of Practice (C790)

The thing that has changed most for an FRA author is that recommending PFR is no longer hand-waving. The CIRIA Code of Practice for property flood resilience (C790) sets out a recognised process for how measures are assessed, specified, installed, commissioned and maintained, with supporting guidance and a plain-English fact sheet for households. There is a recognised way to do this properly, and referencing it in an assessment is what separates a credible PFR recommendation from a line that says “resilient construction” and nothing more.

The detail matters less than the principle: if PFR is being relied on, it should be specified to this standard and be maintainable, not described in general terms.

Build Back Better: repairing flooded homes to be more resilient

On the demand side, Build Back Better runs through Flood Re and lets households claim up to £10,000, on top of repairing the flood damage itself, to install property flood-resilience measures when they make a claim. That can cover a flood survey, resistance measures such as flood doors, and recoverability measures such as replacing damaged materials with more flood-resilient ones. Insurers representing roughly 60% of the home insurance market now offer it, though the exact terms vary by insurer. (For how the wider scheme works, see our guide to Flood Re.)

New development cannot claim Build Back Better, and Flood Re does not cover homes built after the start of 2009. But the principle it signals, reinstate a property to be more resilient rather than simply back to how it was, is one that planners and developers can design in from the start, where it is cheaper and more effective than any retrofit.

What PFR means for new development and planning

• It addresses residual risk. PFR is a legitimate tool for the risk that remains after sequential and exception testing and site mitigation, and it can form part of an FRA’s conclusions.
• It is not a substitute for the Sequential Test. PFR does not justify putting vulnerable development in a high-risk location it should have avoided. See our explainer on the Sequential and Exception Tests.
• Design it in, do not bolt it on. Finished floor levels, flood-resilient construction and safe access and egress are cheaper and more effective designed from the outset than retrofitted later.
• Evidence it properly. Where PFR is relied on, specify measures to the CIRIA code rather than in general terms, so the Environment Agency and LLFA can see exactly what is proposed.

How PFR should appear in an FRA

In a flood risk assessment, property flood resilience belongs in the residual-risk discussion and the conclusions, not as a headline measure doing the heavy lifting. The starting point is national policy. The Planning Practice Guidance on flood risk and coastal change and the NPPF require development to be safe for its lifetime and not to increase flood risk elsewhere, and PFR is one of the tools for the “safe for its lifetime” part once location and layout have been settled through the Sequential and Exception Tests. The draft December 2025 NPPF keeps that structure intact.

A reviewer at the Environment Agency or LLFA wants to see four things: the flood depths and durations the measures are designed for, the specific resistance and recoverability measures proposed, the CIRIA standard they are specified to, and who is responsible for maintaining them. A commitment to “flood-resilient construction” with none of that detail behind it carries little weight, and it is exactly the kind of thin claim a robust review will challenge. Designing resilience in at construction is also far cheaper and more effective than any retrofit, which is part of why flood resilience in England is under growing scrutiny.

What developers and LPAs should do now

For developers, treat PFR as part of the FRA’s residual-risk strategy, specify it to recognised standards, and do not lean on it to dodge the Sequential Test. For local planning authorities, look for PFR that is specific, standard-based and maintainable, and be wary of vague “resilient construction” claims with no detail behind them. The rising cost of flooding, reflected in record UK insurance claims in 2024, makes getting this right more important each year, and it increasingly feeds through into mortgage lending and insurability as well as planning.

Where Unda fits in