We can help you identify whether your land is susceptible to flooding and therefore needs an Flood Risk Assessment

FLOOD RISK ASSESSMENT or FRA

The Country is classified by the Environment Agency under a flood zone classification, under zones 1, 2 and 3. More recently classifications of some areas as Critical Drainage Areas has taken place. If you are considering submitting a planning application in order to carry out development on the land that may be at risk of flooding from local rivers, watercourses, the sea or estuary, then you will need to provide a Flood Risk Assessment.

We look to provide an FRA that will inform the design plans that you submit and confirm that the development is safe, if your site lies within flood zones 2 or 3 or is a large area of land in excess of 1 hectare or is near to water. Where the site doesn’t currently flood, regulations may require you to consider that the any new development is protected from flooding for the next 100 years. Again we look to address these requirements in our reporting.

We can help you identify: –

• Whether your land is susceptible to flooding and therefore needs an FRA
• Provide a Flood Risk Assessment (FRA) which will advise on the appropriate way to develop the site.
• Highlight issues and proposals to overcome flood risk, identifying measures taken to alleviate future problems through good design.

Clearly it’s not in any land owners interest to develop sites in a way that will result in the new properties being flooded, as this severely affects the ability to sell the properties and insure them.  Sea, river and groundwater levels are all changing in a way that leaves areas that have never flooded historically, with significant potential to flood in the coming 100 years.

Recent responsibility for assessing Flood risk and new development has fallen to the Lead Local Flood Authority and in most cases this is now the Local Planning Authority’s drainage team.

If your site lies within a flood zone and any proposals show some risk of flooding then further work may be necessary, such as flood water modelling, wave and wind motion calculations. We have nationally recognised, highly regarded professionals that can provide this information to support your applications and help you formulate a scheme that can secure a planning consent.

Additionally, for larger sites our team are able to provide Drainage assessments, Percolation and soakaway testing and Zone 1 drainage reports.