Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she has taken to inform homes at high risk of flooding in Solihull of (a) that risk and (b) potential steps to mitigate against it.

The Environment Agency provides a free flood warning service throughout England and Wales in areas at risk of flooding from rivers. In the Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC) area, 287 residential properties are eligible to benefit from the service. Of these, 132 are signed up.

The Environment Agency are the Risk Management Authority (RMA) for flooding from Main Rivers. SMBC are the Lead Local Flood Authority and RMA for surface water flooding. SMBC have been working with the Environment Agency on developing ongoing Property Flood Resilience (PFR) schemes in the wider Council area to reduce the risk from surface water flooding. and taking opportunities to raise awareness of flood risk and the Flood Warning Service.

Several areas in the wider Solihull area were awarded both Grant in Aid and Local Levy funding in early 2022 to install PFR measures. Solihull has had an excellent level of signup level for property flood resilience measures across the PFR schemes.