The Environment Agency can supply flood risk information on any given location, using the postcode of the location being queried. Follow the link below to their website.

There are a number of other ways to find out if a particular location is likely to flood. Local place names are often a good clue, street names with a watery theme in the title, e.g. water, spring, wharf, well, mill, bourne or brook, are all strong hints that water is, or once was, nearby. That does not mean that flooding is inevitable.

Speaking to long standing, local inhabitants may help. Remember, people move house more often nowadays, so when someone says “this place hasn’t flooded in living memory”, they could actually mean since they have lived there, which might only be 10 years or so. We are currently seeing flooding in places where it hasn’t occurred for 30 years or more. Local history societies may also be valuable sources of information.

Flood warning

Principal responsibility for flood warning lies with the Environment Agency, which will alert the emergency services, the local authorities, the media and river watches. Individual properties in high-risk areas may receive warnings direct by phone, fax or email from the automated Flood Warnings Direct (FWD) system. Radio and television will broadcast flood warnings and the Environment Agency has a Floodline telephone number, 0845 988 1188, which the public can use to obtain the most recent information about warnings in their area.

The warning system works well for river flooding, where water levels can be more accurately predicted, but it’s more difficult to predict sudden, very localised, events such as flash flooding from intense storms.

Date Published: 28/03/08