Into the future

The 2007 summer floods provided us with valuable information about areas of England and Wales at risk from flooding. Find out how we will use this new information.

What happens now?

If you live or work in an area that was affected by the 2007 summer floods, or an area that is at risk from flooding, you will probably want to know what happens now.

Improved knowledge

The 2007 summer floods provided us with valuable information about areas of England and Wales at risk from flooding. We will now use this information to:

revise our flood maps by the end of the year;
update our flood forecasting and flood warning systems;
look at the way our flood defences worked, and make adjustments if we think they can perform better;
assess whether new, or improved flood defences are required;
review the current maintenance programme of our assets;
schedule a programme of maintenance work to repair some of the flood defences that were damaged.

This new information will also feed into our Flood Management Plans.

Flood Management Plans

Flood water can come from rivers and the sea. We are developing flood management plans for both types of flooding. These are called Catchment Flood Management Plans (CFMPs) for rivers, and Shoreline Management Plans (SMPs) for sea flooding and coastal erosion. These cover a large area of land, so we can assess how defending against flooding in one area may have an effect elsewhere.

Development in the flood plain

Changes of land use, such as building houses or putting down concrete can also have an effect on flood risk. Because of this, we advise against developments that may increase the risk of flooding. Find a full list of our objections to large-scale developments below.