Calls to overhaul planning system amid claims new housing developments are putting extra strain on flood defences

The Flood Prevention all-party parliamentary group (APPG) met today to discuss the impact of Storm Christoph which hit areas of the North West and Wales in particular with flooding last week.

The Environment Agency said many defences had held, and in Yorkshire although some properties were hit the impact was not nearly as bad as previous incidences.

But Laurence Robertson, Conservative MP for Tewkesbury, said although it was now “very easy” to build homes which themselves would not flood, the impact of new developments on other areas was not being addressed.

He said: “It's very easy to build houses or other constructions which themselves won't flood. That's pretty easy. You just raise them, seems pretty simple to me.

“The question is about water displacement, where are they going to cause the water to go to? Will they cause other houses to flood? And I get a number of people coming to me saying we've never flooded before, why are we flooding now?

“Well, it's because land which normally would soak up water has been built on, I'm not a technical person, but it seems pretty simple to me.”

The Government has set itself the target of building 300,000 homes a year by the mid 2020s, but the ambitious aim has raised concerns about where those homes will be built.

Environment Secretary George Eustice last year said an outright ban on building on all floodplains would prevent town and city expansion in lowland areas.

And he said at the time: “It is the case the Environment Agency are already a statutory consultee and, in the overwhelming majority of cases, local government follows the recommendations of the Environment Agency.”

But Daniel Johns, Head of Public Affairs at Anglian Water, told today’s APPG meeting the planning system as it stands “simply is not effective at managing those risks”.

He said: “We need to completely rethink the way in which we manage rain water, surface water, drainage and so on, because the planning system simply isn't effective at managing those risks.

“It's not that new homes [are] being built in areas of flood risk being the problem, it's the pressure that those new properties, causing for existing systems, existing flood defences.”

Director of Flood Risk Strategy and National Adaptation at the Environment Agency, Julie Foley, said a doubling of homes built on floodplains was expected in the next 50 years.

“And so when you put that against the backdrop of climate change, that is telling us that this is something that we are going to need to pay a lot more attention to,” she said.

Meanwhile, Innes Thomson, Chief Executive of the Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA), said he hoped the impact of Storm Christoph would speed up the implementation of the Government’s new environmental land management scheme (ELMS), where farmers would be paid to allow their land to flood.

He said: “ADA is absolutely full square behind the principal of the environmental land management schemes.

“My ask is that there is perhaps a little bit more speed in bringing ELMS to the fore, rather than the discussions that are going, we need action.

“We need to actually start to see some of these in practice, in reality.”

He added: “And I'm hoping - much as a sad event that has taken place - but I'm hoping that Christoph might crystallize some views on how we can use ELMS more effectively.”

ELMS is part of the most significant change to farming and land management for England in more than 50 years following Brexit.

The changes to agricultural policy, which will be brought in over seven years up to 2028, and while the Government has committed to maintaining the £2.4bn per year for farming over this parliament, there plans to halve the £1.8bn paid in direct payments by 2024, with the biggest reductions in the highest payment bands.

The £900m saved will go towards introducing ELMS which will reward farmers for sustainable farming practices, creating new habitats and even rewilding land.