Find out about how we report developement and flood risk.
Development and Flood Risk - England
The Development and Flood Risk report is a summary of the impact of our flood risk technical advice on planning decisions made by English local planning authorities. The report is a less detailed version of the High Level 5 reports (no longer required) to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). It does not, as the HL5 report did, identify the performance of individual local authorities.
Reporting allows scrutiny of the effectiveness of our advice in implementing Government development and flood risk policy, as previously set out in PPS25 and now in the National Planning Policy Framework. The data is also used to inform reports to Regional Flood and Coastal Committees, and helps us improve our performance.
Our most recent reports, for the periods April 2009 to March 2010 and April 2010 to March 2011, concentrate on planning applications and appeals where the Environment Agency sustained its objections through to a known decision. They are available here:
The 2008-09 report can be obtained from:
High Level Target 5 (Rescinded) - England
Between 2001 and 2008 there was a requirement under Defra High Level Target 5 (HLT5) to report on Development and Flood Risk in England. The report set out how well LPAs had taken into account our advice on flood risk. LPAs that had not followed our advice were named as part of the report. With implementation of PPS25 and the Flooding Direction the amount of development permitted against our concerns has greatly reduced. The HLT5 requirement was rescinded in 2008 and the final eighth formal report in the series was published in 2007-08.
HLT 5 reports 2001 - 2008 can be obtained from:
High Level Target 13 - Wales
The equivalent report in Wales is known as High Level Target 13 (HLT13) and is prepared by Environment Agency Wales, in association with the Welsh Local Government Association, and is submitted to the Welsh Government. The requirement for this is still in place.
HLT 13 reports can be obtained from:
Outcome measure reporting - England
Outcome measures continue to be reported to Defra each year. Until 2010-11, reporting requirements for development and flood risk have been centred around delivery of OM8 the prevention of inappropriate development in the floodplain.
For the years 2011-12, OM8 has been replaced by OM6 which is a requirement to report on the "Proportion of residential units within planning decisions where the application has been refused or has been amended in line with Agency advice."
The mechanism for reporting on OM8 has been through the collation of the HLT5 and then the 'Development & Flood Risk report'.
