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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 23 November (HL3251), whether the number of such homes has declined or grown since 2006; and by what number.

The Environment Agency estimates the number of residential properties in areas at high risk of flooding from rivers and the sea to have decreased by about 224,000 in England since 2006. This is due to the delivery of flood and coastal risk management schemes along with improvements in modelling and changes to the classification of risk.

The number of properties in areas at high risk of flooding from surface water was first estimated in December 2013. Since then, the number of residential properties in areas at high risk of flooding from surface water has increased by about 30,000 in England. This increase is primarily due to improvements in the base maps used for modelling data.

The property type information and the modelling methods upon which these estimates are based have improved significantly over this period of time, making exact comparisons more difficult.