Document Status
Current
Supplement
Sustainability, Environment, Development & Planning
Series
Planning Practice Guidance
Abstract
Comprises planning practice guidance focusing on flooding and coastal change in the planning process. Covers: planning and flood risk; taking flood risk into account in preparing plans; site-specific flood risk assessment; sequential approach to the location of development; exception test; role of the Environment Agency and lead local flood authorities in assessing planning applications; addressing residual flood risk; other flood risk considerations; flood risk issues raised by minor developments; flood risk issues raised by changes of use; permitted development rights and flood risk; proximity to watercourses and need for a flood risk activity permit; sustainable drainage systems (SuDS); reducing the causes and impacts of flooding; flood resistance and flood resilience; planning and development in areas of coastal change; flood zone and flood risk tables; and site-specific flood risk assessment: checklist.
History
Last updated: 17 September 2025 - Updates to paragraphs 23, 27 and 28. Addition of paragraph 27a. Sourced from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/flood-risk-and-coastal-change and converted to pdf. Whilst we endeavour to capture all updates it is subject to receiving alerts from the publisher and there may be formatting or punctuation changes applied to the html version that do not affect the text. Document type: guidance. First published: 6 March 2014.
Subjects
- Planning and development
- Planning control, England
- Environmental planning/land
- Coastal planning
- Planning control
- Flood management
Publisher History
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is a UK Government ministerial department with responsibility for several policy areas including building regulation, community integration, economic development in coastal and seaside areas, energy efficiency in buildings, high streets and town centres, housing, local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) and Enterprise Zones, localism, planning reform and the planning system. They were previously known as the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, MHCLG, Department for Communities and Local Government, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Department for Transport and Local Government.