One of the areas we are looking at houses is in a good place to grow old. On the flat,near the sea with nearby shops and restaurants.
It has a medium chance of flooding by 2036 so what with freaky weather now becoming the norm we are looking higher up and further inland.
So I can’t understand why Lidl are building a supermarket behind the houses we were looking at.
Are they rich enough to re kit a flooded supermarket? Will they build in cunning flood defences or are they hoping for the best?
Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne for those interested.
Hopefully a picture is here. 
Are they rich enough to re kit a flooded supermarket?
Yes.
If it floods, they'll rip out the interior, dry out and refit in a fortnight.
Will they build in cunning flood defences
Depends on the planning dept. There are a pair of supermarkets near where i used to live, built ~5 years apart. Opposite sides of the river, both on *proper* well known flood plains. One has loads of drains, soakaways, strategically placed walls etc. The car park gets a bit damp (6" of water) a couple of times a year.
The other one got flooded so often that it's now part of a builders merchants, that mostly carries stuff that doesn't care if it gets damp.
The first one has incidentally and probably shifted the floods about 500m along the river. So it's not all good.
Can't comment on Lidl, but why take the risk of getting in a 3-5yr battle with an insurance company. Especially in later years when the will to take on their bureaucracy and live in a caravan/mobile home is much diminished.
Think wise to move back and up from the medium flood risk area .. .. in the next 11 years! Sure I read somewhere that numerous eminent climate scientists are saying it's getting harder to determine the risk of unusual events and all predictions should be treated with caution, which ever way it affects you.
Yes, minimise the chances of flooding as much as possible. Builders are more than happy to build where they can as once the house is sold, they have a small chance of some sort of claim being made but have also pocketed a load of money.
Supermarkets are very well off, they will be claiming poverty but will have a chunk of money in reserve - not to be wasted away but could be used for stuff like flood damage (and insurance payouts).
For my house, I'd be looking to get away from any chance of flooding.
Lidl are incredibly carefully managed, they will have considered the business case for this. They tend to refurbish stores fairly regularly as well. The people buying the houses on the other hand will be walking around with their fingers in their ears going la la la right up to the point someone off the telly is stood outside their flooded house at which point they will whining about not being able to get insurance and their lives are ruined.
Builders are more than happy to build where they can as once the house is sold, they have a small chance of some sort of claim being made but have also pocketed a load of money.
It's largely the insurance companies controlling the housing market now.
Builders were onto a winner with the Government's very public need to build a shedload more houses so they were happy to take on anything and bung a load of identikit houses in but they can't get away with building on floodplain any more cos whatever they build will end up un-insurable.
It's worth considering when moving house as well though. Anything near a cliff edge (especially one notably subject to erosion) and anything on floodplain will be a nightmare to insure in years to come.
Although do check the solicitor knows what they're talking about. Years ago a mate bought a house and the solicitor report noted it was near a river and therefore subject to flooding. Mate told him in no uncertain terms that he clearly hadn't been to the house or done any sort of on-site research because the river was in a 30m gorge and if that was overflowing, it'd be a flood of Noah proportions.
I’m in the process of buying somewhere that is rated high risk both in terms of surface water run off and river/sea flooding. Not that it’s anywhere near the sea.
In this case we know the area and the history of flooding near the property very well. After the last one in 68 there was some fairly substantial work in the town to stop it happening again. The flood reports we have had through all state that they don’t take into account flood defense works put in place after historic flooding. We’ve also checked insurance costs to make sure its manageable, if a little higher, than they might have been without the flood risk score.
So for us we think it’s still worth buying as somewhere we would hope to stay in for a very long time.
im not 100% sure where im going with this but guess the tl/dr version is that there can (sometimes) be some subtly to the flood scores which might make a difference to some people. If you ignore the creeping certainty of things like sea level rises as the government’s track record on preparedness.
Planning applications for housing near me on known flood areas. Roads have to be permeable so it's a 500pa service charge as they have to be hoovered privately, council won't maintain them. Locals know they flood so will sell to people who don't know.
IKEA in valencia was in the main flood area last year but only a car park on ground floor so opened pretty quickly. All other local shops flooded.
Builders are more than happy to build where they can as once the house is sold, they have a small chance of some sort of claim being made but have also pocketed a load of money.
It's largely the insurance companies controlling the housing market now.
that's simply not true otherwise building houses on floodplaina wouldn't be happening.
Just so no one gets a shock in 2039...
Insurance doesn't look too bad at the moment as there is a government/insurers scheme called Flood Re that is in place to keep the cost of insurance affordable. In 2039 that stops and things will get... Interesting. As far as i am aware there is not yet any plans to extend.
From an insurable perspective a 1 in 75 year standard of defence is generally taken as the minimum standard of protection that is insurable. Effectively below that its already uninsurable so defences that don't achieve that give no economic benefit.
And every year as the effects of climate change continue that standard of defence os eroded away. Old defences need tested from a hydraulic model, data changes. The flows used to design Brechin for example were reviewed after babet and on discussion with sepa. Built as a 1in200 defence in reality it barely gets to 50 before overtopping.
There are then planning regulations to limit what can be done in the future in areas of flood risk. Again looking at brechin (because its published and i can talk about it.) you cannot build on an area unless you can provide an escape route up to a one in 200year event (plus climate change) unless a permanent non structural (from memory) escape route can be provided. So around the edges of a floodplain could be fairly achievable but building on a large flat is a non starter. So you build a 1in200 plus climate change (varies but +30 to +50percent) defence to last 120years. The current property lasts another 20 and you need to redevelop, but you can't because your defence isn't sufficient. So building a huge defence becomes uneconomical.
Businesses are a different kettle of fish. But they make money so if you can build a supermarket for a cost, add a 5year refit* and still make money then who cares?
*A supermarket would be a piece of piss to build to be flood resilient. No need for plasterwork, hard waterproof floors. Dangle the services from the ceiling. The the actual investment is relatively safe and any flood damage is going to be replacing fixtures and fittings and stock (oxo and knorr)
ElShalimo can correct me on any of the finer points. I tend to table on the side of the hydraulics and hydrology and policy.
To the OP, there are differences in land use planning policy between different uses, and one is the industrial or retail is less vulnerable than residential and that it has a shorter design life - in planning terms there is a precautionary approach to 100 years ahead in projections, whereas for other land uses it can be 75 yrs. In reality, as said above, a retail unit might only be there for 20 or 30 years and then get redeveloped again and still have been profitable. And then yes it can have mitigation put in place.
You can find planning permissions online with all the FRA detail and consultation with the Environment Agency transparent. In this example I was more surprised the class 2 care home provision was approved and looking at the letters, it's because they will raise land levels to make that area not flood (including climate change projections. They can only do that because it's coastal flood risk (it doesn't displace water to neighbours). https://www.lewes-eastbourne.gov.uk/article/2087/?RefType=APPPlanCase&KeyText=220850
The difficulty for a home owner is when the houses were built before current climate change projections and/or before planning policy required developers to look at climate change. The fickle nature of storms is you never know when that big one will happen but we do know that sea level is rising quite fast and that rise is 'baked in' because the CO2 and heat is already in the Earth system, there is a lag in ocean temps and ice melt loss... so the sea level rise to 2039-2059 period on the 'check your long term flood risk' website is pretty well known. Once a storm happens obviously you have the hassle, time and cost of repair, and potential loss of irreplaceable items, and the asset that is your home loses value overnight as fewer people are willing to take the risk/cost of repairing flood damage. Even though flood defence spending is the best cost to benefit government spending, there just isn't the cash the raise defences across the whole England coast.
To bigginge, can I ask if the 'flood reports' you have had are from the Environment Agency / SEPA / other devolved authority? They should be able to tell you about flood defences in your area and the water levels and extents expected both with and without raised flood defences, at present and with climate change projections... the scheme from the 70s will be included in the levels / extents (i.e. if it was a culvert or flood relief channel, it IS taken into account in the maps you see on check your ling term flood risk). Just because it hasn't flooded in 50 years doesn't mean it can't and I can only strongly emphasise flooding can and does bankrupt people and cause long term trauma.
You can write to (in England) enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk about what defences exist, what future plans are there for defences, what the shoreline management plan says, flood extents with and without defences now and in the future.
Builders were onto a winner with the Government's very public need to build a shedload more houses so they were happy to take on anything and bung a load of identikit houses in but they can't get away with building on floodplain any more cos whatever they build will end up un-insurable.
There are three estates i know of that have been built on flood plains.
Two of them required all the houses to be built on little islands, minimum height or 1.5m or something. The houses they built at the start, furthest from the river, have the house and garage on top of a well landscaped and constructed platform. As you get further back the platforms get steeper sided, making the garage unusable. Then the garages become separate and at the edge of the plot and you get shallow steps to the house, except the platforms are getting lower as well... Yeah, you know exactly where this goes. Half the houses either flood or at the very least become completely isolated every time the river comes up.
The other one the platforms were just heaped soil and a little bit of hardcore, a good load of them started to get washed away during flooding (only 20-30 houses though), the time for massive remedial works was just after the first house started collapsing during a storm.
The last one is still being built, works stop every now and again because the site is partially flooded. That one was rejected multiple times by town planners and overruled by the SoS. The houses that are finished, i'd be surprised if anyone buys. At least if they look into insurance costs first.
In this case we know the area and the history of flooding near the property very well.
Unfortunately history has nothing to do with what may happen in the future
So for us we think it’s still worth buying as somewhere we would hope to stay in for a very long time.
Goof for you. Personally I always think about resale in the future and in 10 years time prospective buyers may look at your house location in a different light.
.......on the other hand nothing might have changed! But it's a risk I wouldn't be comfortable with TBH.
Depends where you are in Sovereign Harbour. Parts are protected by the current PFI arrangements that are ending this year, an interim solution will start later in 2025.
Some areas of Sovereign Harbour are beneficiaries of the defences put in place when it was built.
The future of the whole area is subject to Pevensey to Eastbourne Strategy that is currently under development.
https://www.pevenseyandeastbournecoast.co.uk
You need to keep an eye on that scheme and the current revision of the partnership funding calculator to get a handle on the long term future of the area. Neither of these will be resolved in the next 18months.
Lots of good info on this thread.
@joshvegas is correct. FloodRe is the Govt backed scheme, through a levy on our household insurance premiums, effectively providing the flood insurer of last resort so that people can get insurance which although expensive is not 25% of the property value. It is guaranteed until 2039 but then the rumours are that market forces will take over and then we will see the return of astronomical premiums for the affected, or alternatively what is sometimes called anti-selection practices, where the insurers will choose not to underwrite you and you are on your own.
The whole thing about climate change, sea level rise (SLR) etc. is that the devil is in the detail but the general themes/trends highlighted above are correct in broad brush terms but less so at a micro level. An example is glacial isostatic adjustment/rebound, the NW of Scotland is rising due to the earth reacting to the ice-sheet retreat, this offsets some short-term SLR but not that far into the future. Also SLR varies considerably across the world due to local conditions/phenomena and variations in gravitational forces. Florida is basically screwed by 2100. The UK will see much more SLR by 2100 compared to the Baltic states but still well under 1m. It all depends on which individual model, or ensemble, from the many credible climate model ensembles you use and then it depends on the way it is used, the sampling etc. Are they using median for a balanced view? The 95th percentile to paint a more depressing picture ? Are they using SSP(AR6) or RCP(AR5) etc. etc. It's very complicated and requires very clear scientific communication which often missing.
TL:DR - don't buy a house near anywhere that floods if you have a choice. There is a reason why all the hydrologists live in elevated locations
I believe the report we have had through uses the Environment Agencies RoFRaS model for the rivers/sea flooding risk assessment and bases the surface water risk on an Ambiental risk analytics map.
As a very general sweeping statement, I'd be very wary of buying anywhere <25m above UK sea level.
My grandparents house and business in west Wales flooded in the 1980s along with most of the town. It was horrible, the water was mixed with sewage and silt, took ages to get the house dry and refurbed and they were always worried that it would happen again. This was a flash flood from a fairly small brook and driving through town it’s hard to imagine how it could ever get 5ft under water.
So, I live on the top of a hill and would be very cautious about anywhere near water.
I read some interesting stuff recently about flood insurance in the US, particularly Florida, where loads of homeowners basically can’t get cover. Imagine the nightmare situation where you get flooded, can’t get insurance, can’t sell and then have to remortgage, this is happening over there
Thanks bigginge, all I can say is that RoFRS from the EA does include flood defence measures, either flood alleviation schemes like channels or raised defences like walls. A High risk is 1 in 30 chance per year, but as storms can happen whenever, like buses, nothing for years and then several.come along at once, I can only strongly advise you to enquire further with the EA of where the risk is from and what strategies and plans, now and in the future, are there for flood risk. The new RoFRS were published on 28 January 2025 so check you are up to date on https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk
If its Sovereign Harbour, check the service charge provisions carefully - you are on the hook for the costs of dredging the approach to the Marina and some of the longshore drift mitigation costs....
So I can’t understand why Lidl are building a supermarket behind the houses we were looking at.
The supermarket built in a flood prone area near me (Aldi, rather than Lidl) was raised up on its own little island and didn't suffer any damage during severe flooding a few years ago, unlike many neighbouring businesses (including a major hotel chain and a poultry based fast-food outlet).
Don't buy a house at risk of flooding. I don't care what insurance you have, it surely can't be worth having your belongings swamped in raw sewage.
I read some interesting stuff recently about flood insurance in the US, particularly Florida, where loads of homeowners basically can’t get cover. Imagine the nightmare situation where you get flooded, can’t get insurance, can’t sell and then have to remortgage, this is happening over there
Lewes High Street had this over 20 years ago.
Suspect there are places in Australia too given the big floods we've had on the east coast repeatedly in areas there should be no housing.
As a very general sweeping statement, I'd be very wary of buying anywhere <25m above UK sea level.
sea level rise isn’t really that much of an issue per se and 25m is pretty silly. My parents have lived below the 5m contour for decades and it’s safe as…houses.
25m above sea level is probably 30% of the UKs landmass.
Christ, i just checked, Warwick is only 11m above sea level... And 25m is more like 75% of the landmass.
Not a chance I would buy anything at or near sea level on the coast
Maybe you will be fine, maybe you won’t, but you can almost guarantee that as time goes on the house will be worth less and less and be harder to sell
Danger of flooding through run-off can also happen in very unexpected places. I live at 240m above sea level and a house above us got flooded in the heavy rains of 2008 as water came off the hills in a way that hadn’t happened in living memory
During Storm Desmond houses in Kendal got flooded when a small (poorly maintained) reservoir over-topped and the water rolled down the hill and flooded properties that were nowhere near a river and not at risk from the more regular modes of flooding.
Why am I saying this? Well it's all a bit complicated. Having broad brush or general set of rules is pointless as each property needs to be assessed individually. The good news is that the EA flood maps are, for most but not all locations, a very robust simplistic expression of today's risk and tomorrow's risk from the impact of climate change
A little research and the application of common sense will go a long way to give you more confidence when selecting your next home. If you really like a house in a lovely location and you're willing to suck up potentially very large increases in future insurance premiums and you've got lots of savings if a flood does happen .... then proceed with caution.
Ultimately bad things can still happen which is why we have insurance. Insurance increases society's resilience to bad things and expedites the recovery after such an event.
Certainly affects my view of where I might move to next when we downsize. Near the coast would be lovely but I'd want to be a couple of miles inland and a 100 foot up above sea level.
Locally we have a few houses in the village that got caught by surface run off a few years back in a severe freak rainstorm, and there's a couple of old ditches/streams through the village that are not maintained. The bottom of my parents garden can flood in winter storms and they and the houses next door have spent a lot on making sure the drains are up to scratch and clear
Coastal erosion is certainly a thing to look out for in some limited areas. Other than that, I’d chose the coast over rivers generally. Inland flooding is greatly affected by development, and climate change is hard to predict (TBH it’s hard to know the true risk even without climate change) whereas sea level rise is known to be small and slow. Bear in mind we have tides of a couple of meters round most of the coast (and much more in some areas). A few cm is quite hard to spot frankly, we wouldn’t know without careful measurements.
Years ago a mate bought a house and the solicitor report noted it was near a river and therefore subject to flooding. Mate told him in no uncertain terms that he clearly hadn't been to the house or done any sort of on-site research because the river was in a 30m gorge and if that was overflowing, it'd be a flood of Noah proportions
Where I used to live, a river runs round the estate built on the site of an old paper mill. The river is well below the buildings level and I've seen it in recent years during very precipitous storms and its nowhere near the houses.
SEPA do the flood risk evaluation but state "its not for the purpose of insurance", yet insurance companies use it. The report recently change so the estate is on the cusp of a flood risk area for being next to a river - insurance goes up heftily, but there's no way of disputing it. Insurance companies say speak to SEPA, SEPA say they don't produce it to be used for insurance. Bit of a nonsense.
Is that the old paper mill in Denny? It is a stunning wee stretch of the river Carron to walk/ride along there...well ride along but above it as it goes into a bit of a gorge and the trail is above it.
It really can be very localised. The pic below is just round the corner from me - it floods like this a couple of times a year. We are certainly less than 100m from this, but crucially the road rises gently and we sit about 10m above this. The pic below that is our flood risk rating.
Re @zippykona - I'd not be buying in that location as a retirement home. You don't need that sort of stress as you grow old.
A few cm is quite hard to spot frankly, we wouldn’t know without careful measurements.
I find it is noticable, infrastructure that was designed for levels more than 50 years ago becomes routinely overtopped at spring tides.
It isn't just the gradual sea level rise, storms are becoming more frequent and intense - storm Babet in Oct 2023 had record breaking swells and caused a lot of damage on the East coast.
It all depends on which individual model, or ensemble, from the many credible climate model ensembles you use and then it depends on the way it is used, the sampling etc. Are they using median for a balanced view? The 95th percentile to paint a more depressing picture ?
I can only speak for the EA on England. We use different percentiles for different applications. In the new flood risk being published, the climate change uplifts are taken from UKCP18, so AR5/RCPs. For check your long term flood risk, which is designed for home and business owners to understand their risk, we use the Central (50th percentile i.e. median ensemble) and an epoch in the medium term that has relevance to home owners (2039-2059). So a 'best estimate'. Whereas Flood Map for land use Planning follows the precautionary principles set out in the National Planning Policy Framework, what is published is a pessimistic 'worst case' to plan new development to. For river flows we use Higher Central (70th percentile) and for sea level change the maps use Upper End (95th percentile) and planning applications flood risk assessments are expected to look at both Higher Central and Upper End for FRAs for sea level. Because in reality we know houses might be lived in for more than their 100 year "design life". https://www.gov.uk/guidance/flood-risk-assessments-climate-change-allowances
What is very difficult is the number of houses built in the 90s to 2000s era when, with hindsight, policy just wasn't strong enough. It seems we are heading back into an era where development will be 'fast tracked' and greenlighted, politically, which could have profound impacts in the medium term.
A few cm is quite hard to spot frankly, we wouldn’t know without careful measurements.
And they do thousands (tens of thousands?) of careful measurements every year, all round the globe.
And they do thousands (tens of thousands?) of careful measurements every year, all round the globe.
Thank you for that, I wasn't aware, having only worked at the UK's sea level research institute for 5 years early in my career of several decades studying climate change.
🤣 🤣 Sorry, my bad. I thought you were trying to say a few cm was hard to spot and we can't even tell...
No, just that the average Joe can't tell. My parents have lived on the sea front since before I was born. Tides go in and out, the sand dunes have changed markedly (due to management practices). There's no way anyone would know the sea level was rising there without detailed investigations.
Actually the local council has done an amazing job with the sand dunes, dumping old christmas trees on the beach every year for a while now and they catch the sand and marram starts growing and they're really impressive now compared to when I was growing up there. There is still plenty of bare beach for sunbathing etc but it must be a real wildlife haven and has greatly cut down on blown sand which can be a nuisance.
(When I say "dumping", I'm sure it's a carefully designed plan, not just fly-tipping, they started at one end and have gradually moved along.)
I'd only be buying something with a medium>high risk if it was substantially under-priced for the area and thus you get some of your financial security back to either save for emergencies or to attempt to flood proof the place.
