You are here:

Property level flood protection

Example of main appliances raised on plinths to increase resilience to flooding. Photo courtesy of Norfolk County Council.The overall aim of work on property-level flood protection and resilience is to identify new and improved ways in which the public can be encouraged to incorporate appropriate flood resilience or resistance measures in their homes and businesses.

Although the Environment Agency continues to maintain and improve large-scale defences for some areas, it is not viable to do so where only a small number of properties would be protected or where defences would be particularly expensive.  One alternative is to improve the flood protection and resilience of individual properties. 

Property-level measures may be an effective strategy in areas that flood frequently (around 1 in 50 years or 2% annual chance) and where community defences are unlikely to be a viable option.  The Pitt Review on lessons learned from the 2007 floods has recommended that the Government do more to promote these measures, both for new build and existing properties in flood risk areas.

Grants Pilot Scheme

Defra completed a £500,000 feasibility study on resilience grants pilots in June 2008.  The pilots were concentrated in areas where properties are at risk from flooding, but were unlikely to receive any flood defence schemes in the foreseeable future.  The results have helped inform our understanding of the effects of financial incentives on the uptake of resistance and resilience measures.

The final report of the pilot scheme is available, along details of Hilary Benn's visit to the Leeds pilot on 20 June 2008.

Encouraging take-up of property-level measures

Example of a flood resilient room with ceramic tiled floors, walls and skirting. Photo courtesy of Norfolk County Council.A second project has been developing alternative methods of encouraging uptake of property-level flood protection, which covers both resistance (keeping water out) and resilience (reducing damage if water does enter a property).   It has been supported by a research project undertaken for Defra by Entec and Greenstreet Berman (Summary Report and two-page Technical Summary; further technical reports will shortly be available on Defra's R&D pages).

In order to improve access to general advice about property-level measures, plans are progressing to develop a website to function as a first port of call for householders and businesses wishing to protect their properties from flood damage, and as an information resource offering catalogued information to help builders and other professionals stay up-to-date with recent methods and findings.

Details of the likely content, structure and development route for the website can be found in the initial scoping report (produced by CIRIA for the Environment Agency). However final decisions will be based on careful consideration of the options and funding available and will be made in discussion with partner organisations.

Developing better information about the most appropriate flood resilience and resistance measures will be key to increasing the uptake and enhancing their role in broader flood management.  Better information will give greater confidence to households about the utility of paying for flood resilience and allow the market to function better as insurers are able to take greater account of the impact of such measures on flood risk in premiums and excesses. Additionally, work will be carried out with a number of key stakeholders to identify ways in which they can directly encourage uptake. 

On 15 May 2007, the Association of British Insurers and Defra held a stakeholder workshop on flood resilience:

The workshop provided stakeholders with an update on progress since the last event in November 2004 and invited stakeholders to contribute to thinking on how we address the remaining barriers to uptake.

Publications

Useful Links