Flood Risk Assessments: How We Can Help You

Did you know EPS has over 10 years’ experience in undertaking site specific Flood Risk Assessments (or FRAs for short)? To be fair, we haven’t shouted about it from the rooftops but yep, we do them and we’ve worked on numerous sites ranging from a single residential property to wide-scale residential/ commercial developments. In addition, EPS now also offer outline sustainable drainage schemes for initial planning applications - either alongside a Flood Risk Assessment or as a standalone report.

We briefly cover the practical side of FRAs in this blog post but going forward keep an eye out for some useful thoughts and opinions!

So, when do you need an FRA? If your proposed development site is located within Flood Zone 2 or Flood Zone 3 on the Environment Agency’s (EA) nationalised flood mapping service, is larger than 1 hectare in surface area, or lies in an area known to have critical drainage issues then an FRA is essential for getting your planning process off the ground because one must be submitted with the initial planning application. Outline drainage schemes are another aspect of the development process which are required as part of the initial planning application and are therefore crucial in the early stages of a proposed development.

Our FRAs meet the requirements of the government guidance to investigate and document the following in relation to the site and its specific environmental setting (where required):

• The applicability of the proposed development under the Sequential Test;
• Sources of flooding, including fluvial, tidal, groundwater, surface water and sewage drainage;
• Local geology and hydrogeology affecting flooding events;
• Local flooding history;
• Impacts of surface water run-off from the proposed development site (including assessment of any existing underground water and sewage utilities);
• Effects of flooding on site and on neighbouring properties;
• Flood warning and evacuation procedure;
• Mitigation methods/appropriate development design to protect the site from flooding, where necessary.

Where available, we will also assess modelled flood data from the EA and local councils’ Strategic Flood Risk Assessments with a topographic survey of the site to provide accurate estimations of the volume of floodwater which could arise, therefore steering the most appropriate mitigation measures.

If you would like to discuss your flood risk or outline drainage scheme requirements, or simply talk over any of the points raised here, we would love to hear from you. Give us a call on 01954 710666 or e-mail us at info@epstrategies.co.uk.