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The news that last month was the wettest February on record will not be a great surprise to the many communities across the UK that have been battered by floods over the last few weeks. And if the climate science is any guide, the grim reality is that last month鈥檚 record inundations are the shape of things to come. 

Mary Dhonau has been campaigning on flood resilience issues with a mounting sense of urgency ever since she was washed out of her home in Worcester more than 20 years ago. She now runs her own flood resilience consultancy working to raise local flood awareness. She says: 鈥淭his is yet another wake-up call about something that will become the new normal of increasingly wet winters and widescale flooding.鈥� 

In 2007鈥檚 summer floods, around 55,000 homes were inundated

The repair bill for the last month鈥檚 disaster will have concentrated minds in Whitehall. In a specially convened House of Commons debate on the floods crisis, held last week, Rhondda MP Chris Bryant said that his South Wales council alone faced a 拢30m bill to repair infrastructure, which has been damaged over the last month. This bill equates to twice the council鈥檚 entire annual capital funding allocation. 

Things could have been worse, countered George Eustice, the recently appointed environment secretary, who rejected calls for a public inquiry. He pointed instead to the increased sums being spent on flood defences, which had already saved thousands of homes from flooding. 

In 2007鈥檚 summer floods, around 55,000 homes were inundated. Thanks to recent investment in flood defences, which was 拢453m in 2018/19 compared with 拢360m in 2009/10, he told MPs that 鈥渟imilar鈥� amounts of water had resulted in 鈥渇ar fewer鈥� homes being flooded out. Once inflation is taken into account though, the increase works out at a less impressive 拢35m, according to an analysis published by Scape last week. 

And flood defences alone won鈥檛 always be sufficient to protect properties. The increased likelihood and severity of flooding means there will have to be changes to how new housing is constructed, such as raised electric sockets and tiled floors, says Dhonau: 鈥淲e need to think about flood-adapted homes [鈥�] We can鈥檛 be repairing the same houses every year, and putting them back exactly the same, to have the kitchen ripped out next year.鈥� 

Some developers are rising to the challenge but they tend to be the exception rather than the norm, she says. 鈥淭hey [developers] are still building cheaply, in a non-resilient way 鈥� homes that haven鈥檛 been adapted.鈥�

Dhonau鈥檚 view is backed up by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the government鈥檚 statutory adviser on global warming, which recently estimated that the total number of properties installed with flood resilience measures is probably still in the low thousands. An estimated annual uptake of such measures in 415 properties each year is, says the CCC, a 鈥渓ong way short of what is needed鈥� to adapt to the climatic conditions that will be created by even a 2潞C increase in global temperatures.

A recently introduced industry-wide code of practice on higher standards for building in flood-prone areas is a step in the right direction, Dhonau says: 鈥淭hey have to make sure that homeowners and businesses are aware of this code, so when people build they are aware that there is a set of standards to be adhered to.鈥�

Mandatory resilience measures

A report issued earlier this year by Bright Blue, a centre ground Conservative backing think tank, goes further by recommending a reform of building regulations for homes being built in the most flood-prone areas. It said that by a set date, which could be 2025, resilience measures should be mandatory for all new-build properties in zones 2 and 3, where the risk of flooding is classed as greater than 0.1%

One solution is simply not to build homes in flood risk areas

This call is backed up by Andy Bord, chief executive of Flood Re, the government-backed scheme set up in 2016 to make it easier for insurers to offer households cover in flood prone areas. He says: 鈥淲e would welcome any changes to building regulations which would make new and existing homes more resilient to flooding in the future.鈥�

Of course, one solution is simply not to build homes in flood risk areas. The weeks since storm Ciara caused the latest wave of flooding has seen fresh calls for planning curbs on flood plain development. MPs lined up in last week鈥檚 House of Commons debate to express their concerns about the issue. John Redwood, the Conservative backbench MP, accused planning inspectors of ignoring recently introduced guidance that flood risk should be taken 鈥渧ery seriously鈥� when weighing up whether to allow appeals on flood plain sites.

Dr Kieran Mullan, the recently elected new Conservative MP for Crewe and Nantwich, called for planners to listen more closely to local knowledge about flood risks that the Environment Agency may not recognise. 

These calls were music to Dhonau鈥檚 ears. She says: 鈥淭he flood plain is where the river goes naturally when it鈥檚 full. In an ideal world, there would be no more building in the flood plain: we can鈥檛 build to flood.鈥�

We should not be passing planning permission for somewhere at risk of flooding

Mary Dhonau, Mary Dhonau Associates

But pointing to government rules penalising councils that fail to meet housing targets, she adds: 鈥淚f councils don鈥檛 complete quotas for development, they can be fined and in an area like Worcester it鈥檚 very difficult to satisfy that demand and not build on the flood plain.

 鈥淭he presumption in favour of development means that [Environment Agency] flood objections are often over-ruled. We should not be passing planning permission for somewhere at risk of flooding if the local authority and the Environment Agency has objected.鈥�

The government鈥檚 response is that it has beefed up national planning guidance, which tells local councils that 鈥渋nappropriate development in areas at risk of flooding should be avoided by directing development away from areas at highest risk鈥�. Under a sequential test, planners should 鈥渟teer new development to areas with the lowest risk of flooding鈥�. 

And according to most recent figures published by the Environment Agency, 97% of the applications that it objects to on flood risk ground over the last three years did not receive planning permission. That still means more than 5,000 properties have been built against the agency鈥檚 advice, the CCC estimates. 

But Bright Blue鈥檚 research finds that there has been very little new building in undefended high flood risk postcodes, where at least half of all residential properties have at least a one in-30 chance of flooding annually. 

We have a growing population and there are lots of people that don鈥檛 have homes

Mike Childs, Friends of the Earth

And as the Environment Agency鈥檚 chief executive Sir James Bevan acknowledged in a speech last week, historic patterns of development mean that new housing will have to continue to be built in flood prone areas. 

Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth, says: 鈥淲e need to build more homes, we have a growing population and there are lots of people that don鈥檛 have homes who need homes but as much as possible but we should avoid flood plains.鈥�

Given the pressure to develop in flood prone areas, Bright Blue recommends that the National Planning Policy Framework should put more emphasis on flood resilience measures in flood-risk areas. And local authorities should be required to monitor the extent to which resilience measures have been installed in properties at risk of flooding in their areas. It also suggests tweaking the Flood Re to make it easier for households in new build properties to obtain insurance. 

And planning for the warmer and wetter climate of the future should not just be about stopping development. It will also involve making space for water at a strategic planning level, says Jane Hamilton, who used to head the now defunct Milton Keynes Development Corporation. The new town鈥檚 original development showed how this could be done with the construction of a network of major lakes forming part of a wider drainage infrastructure. This system is now reaching the limits of its capacity, she says. 鈥淲ith more development upstream, it won鈥檛 cope in the future in the way it has done.鈥�

But Hamilton, who is now chair of the Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterway Trust, argues that this offers a model for how large-scale development in areas like the Oxford to Cambridge arc can be reconciled with flood alleviation. 鈥淲hen you deal with site by site applications, these things aren鈥檛 taken into account.

鈥淚t is quite difficult to get people out of the habit of thinking of water as an obstacle but putting in infrastructure so we know we are not building in problems for the future.鈥�