Almost 3,000 homes have been built in areas at risk of flooding against the official advice of regulators, The i Paper can reveal.
In the last ten years, councils across England have greenlit major housing developments despite objections from the Environment Agency that they are being built in areas of high flood risk, according to data obtained via a Freedom of Information request.
Campaigners said local authorities were making “reckless mistakes” and said the figures were likely the “tip of the iceberg” as the Labour Government puts pressure on councils to build more homes.
Officials warn one in four homes in the UK could be at risk of flooding by 2050 due to climate change. In the last week alone, dozens of homes were flooded across England and Wales as a result of heavy rain from Storm Claudia.
Thousands of homes built against advice
The FOI data, shared with The i Paper, shows that 2,950 homes have been granted planning permission across England since April 2016, despite the EA objecting to the application due to the level of flood risk.
Councils are legally required to consult with the EA over planning applications but are not required to follow the regulators advice.
The authority responsible for approving the most flood-risk properties against official advice is the London Legacy Development Corporation, which is overseen by the Mayor of London to develop the area surrounding the Olympic Park.
The areas where the majority of homes have been built despite flood objectionsIt approved 475 homes on the banks of the Hereford Union Canal in east London despite an objection from the EA. The developer altered its design following the EA’s objection to address concerns raised, but the EA’s objection was not formally lifted.
Bolton Council has approved 324 homes against the advice of the EA, including a 205-home development in the town of Horwich, which regularly experiences flooding.
The homes were approved in 2021, just months after at least 59 properties were devastated by severe flash flooding in the town following an intense thunderstorm.
Residents in Kirkham, Lancashire, have reported being unable to insure their properties due to repeated flood events. Despite this, the local authority – Fylde Council – has allowed 233 homes to be built against the EA’s advice.
Other councils that have approved developments despite EA objections include the London Borough of Hounslow (135 homes), Cornwall Council (105 homes) and Blackburn with Darwen (101 homes).
Fylde Council said the EA’s objection was related to access to a watercourse and the matter was “thoroughly examined by the council” and decided to be “not applicable in this instance”.
A spokesperson for Cornwall Council said the council has “the second highest housing target in England” and that 105 homes represents roughly 0.4 per cent of homes approved per year.
But Dr Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace, said building in these flood-risk areas was “quite literally a recipe for disaster”.
“These councils are leaving homeowners to play Russian roulette with flooding, knowing full well that the risk will only grow as the climate crisis bites,” he said.
Magnus Gallie, senior planner for Friends of the Earth, said hundreds of thousands of homes are already “at risk from flooding because of poor planning decisions and policy loopholes”.
“These latest figures show the same reckless mistakes are still being made – condemning families to future flood misery and soaring insurance costs,” he added.
Labour pressure
While the data mostly covers the period in which the Conservatives were in power, campaigners say they fear the problem is getting worse due to the pressure Labour is putting on councils to approve housing developments.
Labour has increased councils’ housing targets in order to meet its own pledge of building 1.5 million homes by 2029 to alleviate the housing crisis.
“Local government is coming under huge pressure from both ministers and developers to lay bricks as fast as possible to deliver against the new housing targets, but this can’t lead to careless planning with families left to suffer the horrible consequences of bad political decisions,” Parr said.
Louis Ramirez, managing director at Flooded People, a charity supporting communities affected by floods, said they regularly hear from people whose homes have flooded because they live downstream from new developments.
This can be because the draining of a new development has not been properly modelled or the developer has not included flood alleviation measures that were promised at the planning stage, he said.
“Developers can say that they’re going to do something, but there’s basically no one to check that they actually do it, because the council’s development teams are underresourced,” he said.
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Toothless watchdog
Campaigners are calling on the EA to be given more powers to intervene and block a planning application when it identifies a flood risk.
“The EA is a statutory consultee but that doesn’t actually give them any power to stop it and also they are under pressure not to stop things,” Ramirez said.
“Ministers must make sure that the watchdog in charge of protecting people from floods has the resources and legal powers to enforce its warnings,” Parr added.
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