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164 posts found
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
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Defra
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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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SuDS
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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SuDS
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Drainage
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Flood History
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Natural Flood Management
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Drainage
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Flood History
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Flood Risk Assessment
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Dam Breach
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Flood Modelling
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Drainage
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Flood Defence
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Flood History
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Natural Flood Management
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Flood Defence
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Flood Event
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Flood History
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Flood Risk Assessment
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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Flood Depth Data for Rivers and Sea: A Practitioner’s Guide
On 27th August 2026 the Environment Agency published flood depth data for rivers and the sea. Four datasets appeared on the Defra Data Services Platform covering present-day and climate change scenarios, defended and undefended, with no announcement, no press notice,…
Posted on 27th August, 2026
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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NaFRA2
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Planning
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Industry Insights
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News & Updates
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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SuDS
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Conveyancing
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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Property
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Insurance & Finance
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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NPPF August 2026 Changes: Flood Risk and Drainage Implications for Planning
The NPPF 2026 changes are now live. Government published the new National Planning Policy Framework on 17 August 2026, and it applies to planning decisions in England from the day of publication. For flood risk and drainage this is no…
Posted on 17th August, 2026
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Policy & Legislation
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Campsite and glamping flood risk and drainage: the planning requirements in England
A campsite flood risk assessment is required for any camping, glamping or holiday caravan proposal in Flood Zone 2 or 3, and for sites in Flood Zone 1 that are a hectare or more, sit in a critical drainage area,…
Posted on 17th August, 2026
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Drainage
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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Policy & Legislation
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Can I Build a House Extension in a Flood Zone?
Yes, and most of them get built. Wanting a house extension in a flood zone is not the problem; the sticking point is the evidence the council asks for before it will grant permission. Sitting in Flood Zone 2 or…
Posted on 13th August, 2026
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Policy & Legislation
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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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Environment Agency
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Flood Defence
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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“Granny Annexe” Flood Risk Assessment: The Planning Rules
A granny annexe is self-contained accommodation built for a relative, usually an elderly parent, either added to a house or converted from a garage, stable or outbuilding. “Granny annexe” is the everyday name; in planning language it is ancillary or…
Posted on 7th August, 2026
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Policy & Legislation
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Do you need a flood risk assessment for a change of use to an HMO?
Usually, yes. A flood risk assessment is required for a change of use to an HMO wherever the site sits in Flood Zone 2 or 3, and in a growing number of Flood Zone 1 cases too. An HMO is…
Posted on 7th August, 2026
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Policy & Legislation
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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SuDS
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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SuDS
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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Do you need a flood risk assessment for a barn conversion (Class Q)?
Yes — if the barn sits in a flood risk area, a flood risk assessment for a barn conversion is almost always required, even though the work is permitted development. Class Q lets you turn an agricultural building into a…
Posted on 3rd August, 2026
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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Policy & Legislation
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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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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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PPG
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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SuDS
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Technical Insights
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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SuDS
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Technical Insights
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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Flood ReThink 2026: Flood Performance Certificates Explained
A Flood Performance Certificate (FPC) is a proposed rating of how well a home withstands flooding, and it is one of the headline proposals in the reforms Flood Re set out on 2 July 2026, ten years after the scheme…
Posted on 3rd July, 2026
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Flood Risk Assessment
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floodre
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insurance
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Insurance & Finance
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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Planning Application Invalidated? The Flood Risk and Drainage Documents You’re Missing
A planning application invalidated for flood risk or drainage almost always comes down to one thing: a document the local planning authority treats as mandatory is missing from the submission. Most often that is a flood risk assessment (FRA), a…
Posted on 22nd June, 2026
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Drainage
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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Policy & Legislation
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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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Drought
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Flood
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Technical Insights
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Flood Defence
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Natural Flood Management
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Climate Change
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Coastal
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Tidal
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Defence
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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Technical Insights
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Understanding Flood Risk
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Why the Insurance Industry Is Warning Against the NPPF Flood Risk Changes
In early March 2026, as the government’s consultation on its revised National Planning Policy Framework drew to a close, seventeen of the most significant names in UK flood risk signed a single joint letter to ministers. Insurers, mortgage lenders, brokers…
Posted on 8th June, 2026
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Flood Risk Assessment
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insurance
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NPPF
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Planning
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Industry Insights
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Insurance & Finance
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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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Flood Defence
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Voids
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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BGS
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Groundwater
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Planning
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Technical Insights
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Understanding Flood Risk
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EA Flood Map for Planning: May 2026 Update — Surface Water Climate Change Data
On 28th May 2026 the Environment Agency added surface water climate change extents and banded depth layers to the Flood Map for Planning. The Check Your Long Term Flood Risk (CYLTFR) surface water data should no longer be used for…
Posted on 28th May, 2026
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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Sequential Test
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News & Updates
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Policy & Legislation
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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
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BREEAM
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Pol 03
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SuDS
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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AI
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Flood Defence
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Flood Risk Assessment
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floodre
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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SuDS
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Natural Flood Management
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Planning
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Deep Dive
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Environment Agency
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Flood Modelling
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Technical Insights
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Drainage
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Flood Risk Assessment
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NPPF
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Flood Risk Assessment
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Natural Flood Management
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Flood Risk Assessment
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Housing
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Planning
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Flood Defence
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Natural Flood Management
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Natural Flood Management
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Industry Insights
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Flood Risk Assessment
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SuDS
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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NPPF
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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Planning Appeals 2026: Why Flood Risk and Drainage Must Be Right First Time
A planning appeal on flood risk grounds is now, in most cases, decided on the evidence that was already sitting in the application file. Since 1 April 2026 most appeals in England run through a streamlined written representations procedure, and…
Posted on 27th March, 2026
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PINS
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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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Planning
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Environment Agency
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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GIS
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Understanding Flood Risk
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How to Do a Flood Risk Assessment for Planning
A flood risk assessment (FRA) is a technical report that identifies how a site could flood, now and over the lifetime of a development, and shows a planning authority that the proposal will be safe and will not make flooding…
Posted on 17th March, 2026
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Industry Insights
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Flood Risk Assessment Cost: What Drives the Price and Why Bespoke Beats Fixed
Ask ten flood risk consultants what a flood risk assessment costs and the honest ones all say the same thing: it depends on the site. Anyone who quotes a firm figure before they have seen yours is guessing. The cost…
Posted on 16th March, 2026
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Cost
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Why an Expert Should Write Your Flood Risk Assessment
A flood risk assessment looks like a document. What you are buying is the judgement behind it. Which source of flooding actually governs the site, whether the published mapping can be trusted at this scale, what the reviewing authority will…
Posted on 11th March, 2026
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Flood Risk Consultants
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Policy & Legislation
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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
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Property
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Understanding Flood Risk
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CIRIA C821 Explained: Community Maintenance of Flood Risk Assets
CIRIA C821 is a free three-part guidance suite, published in 2025, on how community groups can help maintain local flood risk assets and how the authorities responsible for those assets should work with them. Its value is the line it…
Posted on 6th March, 2026
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Unda at the Manor Royal Jobs Fair – Crawley Town Hall
Today, members of the Unda team are at Crawley Town Hall taking part in the Manor Royal BID Jobs Fair, meeting local jobseekers and showcasing career opportunities within the business. Representing Unda at the event are Jackie and Antony, who…
Posted on 6th March, 2026
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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
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Sequential Test
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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Historic Flooding
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Planning
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Deep Dive
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Policy & Legislation
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Understanding Flood Risk
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What Is Sewer Flooding? Causes, Risks and Planning Implications
Flooding can also occur when sewer systems are unable to carry or contain the volume of water entering them. This type of flooding is known as sewer flooding. Sewer flooding occurs when wastewater or stormwater escapes from the sewer network…
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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Flood Risk Assessment
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Groundwater
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Planning
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Sea
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Tidal
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Flood Risk Assessment
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Flood Zones
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Fluvial
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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SuDS
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Policy & Legislation
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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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Flood Map
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Approved Despite Flood Risk? What the 2026 NPPF Actually Requires
"Approved despite flood risk fears" is a stock headline in England's local press, and it usually means the same thing: residents describe flooded roads or overwhelmed drains, councillors record their worry, and permission is granted anyway. The reading most people…
Posted on 16th February, 2026
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Flood Risk Assessment
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Planning
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Policy & Legislation
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Does the Jubilee River Increase Downstream Flood Risk?
The Jubilee River is an 11.6 kilometre flood relief channel on the River Thames, opened in 2002 to lower flood levels in Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton. Because it moves a large volume of water from one part of the river…
Posted on 12th February, 2026
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Understanding Flood Risk
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River Thames Scheme delays: what a stalled flood defence means for planning
The River Thames Scheme delays have now outlasted the review that caused them. The Environment Agency and Surrey County Council closed their mid-project review on 28 May 2026 and confirmed that the engineering was sound and needed no redesign. Three…
Posted on 9th February, 2026
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Uncategorized
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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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
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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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Flood Defence
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Flood History
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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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Flood risk data delay slows planning and housing delivery
Yesterday, on 29th January 2026, updated surface water flood risk data was due to be published for use in development planning. Late in the day, it was confirmed that the release had been delayed, with no revised publication date and…
Posted on 30th 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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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Property Prices
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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News & Updates
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Flood Risk Assessment
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Property
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Insurance & Finance
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Understanding Flood Risk
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What Is Flood Re? A Clear Guide to the UK Flood Insurance Scheme
Flood Re is a UK government-backed reinsurance scheme that keeps home flood insurance available and affordable for households at higher flood risk. Set up under the Water Act 2014 and launched in April 2016, it lets insurers pass the flood…
Posted on 7th January, 2026
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insurance
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Property
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Guides & How-Tos
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Policy & Legislation
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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
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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Understanding Flood Risk
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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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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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Understanding Flood Risk
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December 2025 NPPF Draft | Flood Risk and Sequential Test
Update, 17 August 2026: the final Framework has now been published and replaces the December 2024 NPPF. This article is retained as a record of what the consultation draft proposed. For what the published version actually changed, read our full…
Posted on 18th December, 2025
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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
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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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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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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
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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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Understanding Flood Risk
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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
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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
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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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Arun’s SuDS Design Checklists: From Outline Application to Occupation
The Arun SuDS design checklists are five separate documents, published by Arun District Council in October 2025, and between them they govern a scheme from its first outline drawing to the day someone moves in. They align the district with…
Posted on 27th October, 2025
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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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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
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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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PPG flood risk: what the September 2025 Sequential Test update changed
The PPG flood risk guidance changed on 17th September 2025, and the four paragraphs it rewrote decide how a Sequential Test gets scoped and evidenced today. The sequential approach now reads across every source of flooding, surface water included. A…
Posted on 22nd 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
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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
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Declaring flooding when selling a house: TA6 rules, the law and how to check flood history
If a home you are selling has ever flooded, you have to say so. When selling a property in England and Wales you have to declare flooding, because flood history is one of the material facts a seller must disclose,…
Posted on 27th August, 2025
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EA Flood Map for Planning: August 2025 Update
On the 27th August 2025, the Environment Agency (EA) will roll out changes to the Flood Map for Planning (FMfP). This update aims to make climate change flood risk data easier to use at the planning stage, while keeping the…
Posted on 15th August, 2025
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Can the Sequential Test Be Reformed to Unlock Homes?
As appeals like Faversham and Yatton make clear, national policy on flood risk is straining under its own weight. The Sequential Test — originally designed to steer vulnerable development away from areas at highest flood risk — is now increasingly…
Posted on 25th July, 2025
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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
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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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Met Office Flood Warnings: Who Actually Issues Them
The Met Office does not issue flood warnings. That one fact clears up most of the confusion behind the phrase, because a search for Met Office flood warnings almost always ends up somewhere else. The Environment Agency issues flood alerts…
Posted on 7th July, 2025
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Faversham Appeal Shifts Flood Risk Sequential Test Best Practice
A recent appeal decision (Ref: APP/V2255/W/24/3350524) has stirred interest across the planning and flood risk sectors. The case concerned an outline application for 250 homes on land at Ham Road, Faversham — partly at risk from tidal and surface water…
Posted on 3rd July, 2025
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Riparian Ownership: Rights, Responsibilities and Guidance
Riparian ownership means owning land that sits next to, above or contains a watercourse: a river, stream, brook or ditch. Unless your title deeds say otherwise, the law presumes you own the bed and banks of that channel up to…
Posted on 6th June, 2025
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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
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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
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What the 2025–30 London Surface Water Strategy Means for Planning
As climate change accelerates and urban environments become denser, cities around the world face mounting challenges in managing water. Nowhere is this truer than in London, where the convergence of ageing infrastructure, rising population pressures, and increasingly erratic weather patterns…
Posted on 22nd May, 2025
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EA Flood Map for Planning: 2025 Update Explained
On 25th March 2025, the Environment Agency (EA) launched a major update to its Flood Map for Planning (FMfP), marking a pivotal shift in how flood risk is represented for the planning system in England. This update integrates findings from…
Posted on 27th March, 2025
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What Is a Surface Water Drain? Where Yours Goes and Who Owns It
A surface water drain carries rainwater away from your roof, driveway and garden. It is a separate system from the foul drain that takes waste from your sinks and toilet, and it usually ends in one of three places: a…
Posted on 26th February, 2025
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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
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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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Flood Risk and the UK Housing Market: A Slow-Building Financial Threat
Rising flood risk is a long-term threat to the UK housing market, to the mortgages secured against it, and to the wider financial system. For now, most households at risk are shielded by Flood Re, the industry scheme that keeps…
Posted on 29th January, 2025
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Flood and Water Management Act 2010: A Practitioner’s Guide
The Flood and Water Management Act 2010 (FWMA) is the law that governs how flood risk is managed in England and Wales. It received Royal Assent on 8 April 2010, made county and unitary councils responsible for local flooding, gave…
Posted on 6th January, 2025
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The Pitt Review: impact, legacy and the gaps that remain
The 2007 floods turned the wettest summer on record into the most destructive inland flooding Britain had seen in modern times. Thirteen people died, more than 55,000 properties went under, around 7,000 people were rescued, and the bill came to…
Posted on 3rd January, 2025
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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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The Sequential and Exception Tests Explained (2026 Update)
Updated 17 August 2026. This guide has been rewritten for the new National Planning Policy Framework, which the Government published on 17 August 2026. The new Framework replaced the December 2024 version and changed how the sequential and exception tests…
Posted on 16th December, 2024
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Flood Modelling Software Explained: 1D, 2D and Coupled Models
Flood modelling software solves the equations that describe how water moves, then reports the answer as levels, depths, velocities and extents. Which package is used matters far less than how many dimensions the model solves in: one, two, or the…
Posted on 20th November, 2024
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Topographical Surveys for FRA & SuDS: When Are They Needed?
A topographical survey is a measured land survey that records a site's exact levels, contours, features and existing drainage. For a flood risk assessment or a SuDS drainage design, it is the ground truth everything else sits on. You usually…
Posted on 18th November, 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
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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
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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
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Water Companies and the Planning Process: A Developer’s Guide
Water companies and the planning process are closely tied, even though the water company rarely appears on a decision notice. When you develop a site, your regional water and sewerage company is the body that confirms whether the network can…
Posted on 2nd September, 2024
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What Is a Local Planning Authority (LPA)? A Guide for Developers
A local planning authority (LPA) is the council responsible for deciding planning applications in its area and for shaping how land is used and developed. Almost every development, from a single-storey extension to a housing scheme, passes through an LPA…
Posted on 30th August, 2024
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The Environment Agency (EA): Flood Risk and Planning
The Environment Agency is the government's statutory adviser on flood risk in the English planning system. It does not decide planning applications, but where a site carries flood risk its advice usually shapes whether permission is granted, refused, or held…
Posted on 28th August, 2024
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Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs): what they do and why they matter for planning
An internal drainage board, usually shortened to IDB, is an independent public body that manages water levels and land drainage across a defined low-lying area where gravity drainage alone will not do the job. England has 112 of them, covering…
Posted on 27th August, 2024
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Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA): What It Is and Which Is Yours
A Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) is the county council or unitary authority responsible for managing local flood risk across its area: surface water, groundwater and ordinary watercourses. There are 153 of them in England. On major planning applications the…
Posted on 26th August, 2024
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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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How to Challenge the Environment Agency Flood Map
There is no form. If you want to challenge the Environment Agency flood map in England, the first thing to understand is that the Environment Agency publishes no procedure for doing it. There is no application route, no evidence checklist…
Posted on 3rd June, 2024
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Applying the Sequential Test Post-Mead: A Guide for Planning Professionals
A recent decision of the High Court, upheld by the Court of Appeal in Mead Realisations Ltd v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities [2024] EWHC 279, has clarified several key aspects of national planning policy relating…
Posted on 20th February, 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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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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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
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