Flood risk information needed

LV_426

We've identified a possible house to buy. It's more or less perfect for us and ticks all the boxes. However the location is close to a nearby river. Not a big one, but I've checked the flood zone map, and the property is indicated as zone 2, and quite close to zone 3, which is the highest risk.
I don't know if there's ever been occurrences of flooding in this area, and I'd just like more information to be able to assess the risk. Any ideas where the best place is to find out more?

user1977

Check local news archives? Ask around? Get insurance quotes? 

youth_leader

I was thinking of buying in St Blazey in Cornwall in a high flood risk area, I found a lot of information in the news archives as well as the Facebook community page.

propertyrental

How close to the river? Is the house higher than the river? How much higher? What's the other side of the river? I ask because I'm buying near one too, but there's a lake the other side which is lower than the river bank, so if the river ever broke its banks the water would go the other way.

A lot of this is common sense, but yes, local news reports..

Or knock on the neighbours doors and ask. Or the local pub, corner shop, postman etc.....

Mercurial

Have you tried emailing 

Enquiries @environment-agency.gov.uk

You can request flooding history on a property if it's in England.  This is on gov.uk website. 

You can also Google check long term flood risk service.gov.uk

I'm on my phone do can't copy the link.

LV_426

propertyrental said:

How close to the river? Is the house higher than the river? How much higher? What's the other side of the river? I ask because I'm buying near one too, but there's a lake the other side which is lower than the river bank, so if the river ever broke its banks the water would go the other way.

A lot of this is common sense, but yes, local news reports..

Or knock on the neighbours doors and ask. Or the local pub, corner shop, postman etc.....

We've got a viewing lined up next week, so we'll certainly be exploring the whole area. Yes I agree it depends on the topology and positioning of the river. 
And yup, we'll be knocking on neighbours doors. Gives you an excuse to sus them out too

Muttleythefrog

youth_leader said:

I was thinking of buying in St Blazey in Cornwall in a high flood risk area, I found a lot of information in the news archives as well as the Facebook community page.

Yes I agree with this advice... you can't beat local knowledge and quirks.... best of all people on same street/estate who've been there a long time... getting images and gossip as well as news online and across social media is a great source.

(For reference youth_leader... you may already know... but St Blazey effectively along with Par is a former bay (Tywardreath) and estuary... the sea has retreated massively (largely due to silting up..china clay industry etc) and continues to do so at almost 2m a year. So there are marshes and general high risks of flooding in the lower altitudes and it doesn't help having South West water's failing systems. That said... there are parts of both that must have very low flood risks as they're on land that forms the former sea cliffs.... fascinating area but popular with bunnies as the land is full of diggable sand... in fact St Blazey football pitch was dug up during the war to fill sandbags and where Par is used to be a cross bay ferry service while the church in St Blazey still has hooks in the wall for mooring boats. Tywardreath literally means house on the strand (or beach) and that takes you to Daphne du Maurier's novel of same name based on precisely this location and its past incarnation. I digress... message me if you need any more useless info..lol)

Back to thread.... definitely try to get very localised information... for example there may be plans or ongoing works to alleviate risks from rivers as there was in a property I was going to buy a year ago and indeed that is ongoing in the locality otherwise mentioned in this post. I've generally found flood risk mapping to be a decent guide as to what you should think about but meaningful accuracy might be highly variable. Global warming has to be a consideration in general elevations of flood risk. Knock on neighbours' doors... yes good plan.

theoretica

I found it interesting to play with the flood maps eg https://check-long-term-flood-risk.service.gov.uk for England - and see what it looks like in areas I know well for both river and surface water flooding.  Helped me work out how much to trust it for places I didn't know so well.

youth_leader

Thank you @Muttleythefrog, how interesting, I had also considered Par.  I'm retired and had to downsize when my husband died,  I decided I'd like to have a fresh start in a new area and find a project I'd like to volunteer at,  I chose the Eden project in Cornwall, or the Sidmouth Donkey sanctuary in Devon.  I was very excited initially and then got nervous, each area seemed unsuitable for one reason or another. 

markin

zone 2 must mean eventually it will flood ? Could be next year or 50 years, If new flood defences are placed up stream you could then be in the new path.

I would even consider the 2050 2100 maps.
https://coastal.climatecentral.org/map/10/359.0844/53.5815/?theme=sea_level_rise&map_type=year&basemap=roadmap&contiguous=true&elevation_model=best_available&forecast_year=2150&pathway=ssp3rcp70&percentile=p50&refresh=true&return_level=return_level_1&rl_model=gtsr&slr_model=ipcc_2021_med