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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment has he made of the accessibility of maps of areas designated as Flood Zones (a) 2, (b) 3 and (c) 3b to the general public.

Maps of areas designated as Flood zones 2 and 3 are publicly accessible for the whole of England through the Flood Map for Planning service on GOV.UK (Flood map for planning - GOV.UK (flood-map-for-planning.service.gov.uk). This service is for use in assessing flood risk at potential development sites, and is fully accessible in line with Government Digital Service requirements (Accessibility statement - Flood map for planning - GOV.UK (flood-map-for-planning.service.gov.uk)

The Flood Map for Planning service does not separately denote areas of Flood Zone 3b (functional floodplain). This information is available in the relevant Local Planning Authority’s (LPA) Strategic Flood Risk Assessment (SFRA). These are usually freely available on council websites.

Other flood risk information for all areas in England is also available to the public through our Check Your Long Term Flood Risk service (Check the long term flood risk for an area in England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This includes flood risk information from rivers and the sea, surface water, reservoir and groundwater (where this is available). This is also fully accessible on GOV.UK (Accessibility statement for the Check your long term flood risk service - GOV.UK (check-long-term-flood-risk.service.gov.uk).

Information can also be sought from Floodline by telephone on 0345 988 1188 or textphone on 0345 602 6340 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.