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Committee issues floodplain guidelines

In the wake of the devastation felt by over 6,000 homes this autumn, the cross-party Environment Select Committee yesterday issued three key guidelines aimed at slowing the rate of housebuilding in flood-risk areas.

They recommended that the Department of Trade and Industry revise the planning guidelines it is to release next year so that local councils are advised only to allow developments in flood plain areas in very exceptional circumstances. It gave little indication of what such circumstances may be.

The committee also called for local authorities to amend existing plans so that flood risk land is removed from those areas already designated for development.

Finally, the committee suggested that information about flood risk should become a standard part of local authority searches for home-buyers, with the ultimate aim of flood risk information being included in the soon-to-be-mandatory seller's pack.

The committee chairman, Andrew Bennett, held the firm view that, "We have got to make sure that no one else has a house built in a flood plain, where they could be flooded".

However, in something of a contradiction, the committee also claimed that there was a need for flexibility, particularly in inner-city areas. It is important, they argued, to ensure that the new policy guidance did not lead to a blanket exclusion of development of large areas of brownfield land on former industrial areas near rivers.