How accurate is the EA calculation for surface water flooding?

darkazuria

Hi,My partner and I just got an offer accepted on the house but realised that is listed on the EA website as low risk of surface water flooding but the neighbour on the right is high risk.The neighbour on the left (and most of the street) is really low risk.Wondering how worried we should be and how accurate the data really is?Have people experienced surface water flooding in houses that were really low / low risk? What about high risk?The seller said the house has never flooded and she's owned the house for 10 years. She said the neighbours house has never flooded either. And when looking at quotes online for home insurance they are normal prices. The house is in York and perfect budget/location for us and it's really low risk for river/sea flooding and in zone 1 for this.Here's the map with the high risk zones highlighted 


 Looking at the map there are quite a few areas around the city that are medium/high risk for surface water flooding so not sure how worried we should be. 

Keep_pedalling

I would not be worried at all. We lived in our previous high risk for surface flooding for 38 years and the worse that happened was we got a very soggy rear garden from time to time. The house was never threatened.

RAS

In York areas of different risk can be very close to each other because the topography. The houses at the end of the road overlook the Foss. The water has risen within 10 feet of the front door, but was still 6 foot below the door. They are classed as very low risk for river and surface water. A more modern estate adjacent has river flood risk high as one end of a street and very low at the other, although the surface water risk run very low to low.

There are also several areas with major flood prevention schemes which are generally very safe but have potential risk like those protected by the Foss Barrier pumping station and the Leeman Road levies. 

Look on the ground, is the a dip in the road, does the road push water along one gutter, does the drive slope down from road, diverting water into a property?

lincroft1710

EA is the usual abbreviation on this forum for Estate Agent, rather than Environmental Agency.

chrisw

lincroft1710 said:

EA is the usual abbreviation on this forum for Estate Agent, rather than Environmental Agency.

And? It's pretty obvious which one it's referring to in the context.

lincroft1710

chrisw said:

lincroft1710 said:

EA is the usual abbreviation on this forum for Estate Agent, rather than Environmental Agency.

And? It's pretty obvious which one it's referring to in the context.

Agree, but it is sensible to put the full name in the title and the abbreviation in the text. For those of us of advanced years, the title did confuse until I read the text.

Chief_of_Staffy

It's not accurate down to individual houses for surface water flooding, in my experience. For example, we live on a hill and Nos. 15 and 16 were flooded by surface water about 10 years ago. The map shows 15 and 16 as No Risk (or Low Risk on the table), whilst Nos. 18 and 19 are High Risk. Nos. 18 and 19 have never flooded, and 19 could not possibly flood due to its position, so it looks like the flood area is out by about 40m. I've seen this on many areas that I've checked and also known the history of.

Yorkie1

RAS said:

In York areas of different risk can be very close to each other because the topography. The houses at the end of the road overlook the Foss. The water has risen within 10 feet of the front door, but was still 6 foot below the door. They are classed as very low risk for river and surface water. A more modern estate adjacent has river flood risk high as one end of a street and very low at the other, although the surface water risk run very low to low.

There are also several areas with major flood prevention schemes which are generally very safe but have potential risk like those protected by the Foss Barrier pumping station and the Leeman Road levies. 

Look on the ground, is the a dip in the road, does the road push water along one gutter, does the drive slope down from road, diverting water into a property?

What RAS said.

The Env Agency has over the last year or three upgraded the Foss Barrier pumps, strengthened the Leeman Road levees and improved flood protection elsewhere in the city.

How old are the properties? And are they near to either of the rivers? Or is it just surface water (drains) which the map relates to?

darkazuria

Only surface water. It's not near the river and doesn't fall in the risk area for that. 

Most of the houses on that streets are 1930s, but the one we are buying is mid 1990.

We've just got the environmental report back from our solicitor and they find:
Flooding from river and sea and ground water - Negligible
Surface water flooding - Low and to the actual building Negligible.

So that's a good sign