about the flooding

[CanISawItOff]

Aibu to think if we didn't build on every spare scrap of land and didn't pave over every garden then perhaps the floods in many areas wouldn't be so bad?

I had this conversation with My DP last night and this is his theory too.
YANBU :)

Yup, building on flood plains has caused a lot of problems in Sussex.
Number of front gardens turned into paved parking likewise.

YANBU houses have been built of flood plains here and they get flooded who knew !
I wouldnt want to wish a flood on anybody though it must be devastating

YANBU

Building on flood plains, just bonkers

[lives on a hill]

Well its true that there would e less surface water flooding but wouldn't reduce river flooding much. But then if you build in the flood plain it should be expected.

I think its ridiculous that the environment agency has no legal power stop development in the floodplain.

This time next year when the agreement with insurers about having affordable insurance for flood risk homes ends a lot of people will be finding themselves with uninsurable and unsellable homes. Something is going to have to be done but the question is what that something may be and who is going to pay for it.

Where does the water in the rivers that flood come from?
Ground water runoff mostly, into the feeder streams.

Surely the onus is on the owner/purchaser to check whether they are buying a property on land that floods so shouldn't they pick up the tab?

It can't be too much of a stretch to think that the lovely house by the river may possibly flood every so often?

Some houses didn't used to flood until the nearby flood plain was built on or a river re-directed or other adaptations to their neighbourhood put them in the path of extra water.

YANBU. New housing, in the SE in particular, is being planned and built on floodplains, and apparently that's ok???

Yep, seems to be - which is daft these days. Leaving aside the issue of increased run-off due to paving-over, I guess it wouldn't have been too bad on the flood plains 200 years ago. Cottages then had stone or wooden floors (no chipboard to disintegrate or fitted carpets to moulder), no electricity or electrical items to fuse and rust, no sewage pipes to back up, no water supply to be contaminated (once the well had cleared), limited (and wooden) furniture and so on and so on. Once the flood receded it would be broom out, slosh some water over the remaining mud and bring the chairs back downstairs.

Moral: don't buy any older houses today called 'Moat Cottage' or similar.

People are so desperate for new houses they will buy anywhere where i am they were marketed as Riverside apartments that must have got people excited because they sold within weeks and they have been flooded out every winter,

DH has to go and try and turn off their gas meters a few winters ago he had to go in a police boat to get in,

I confess that I didn't realise that gas supply was a problem during floods. Every day is a school day.

YANBU. I would never buy a house on a new estate called something like summerleaze or brookend, for example.

A lot of people dont though DH boredme told me all about it apparently there can be fires or problems with water getting into pipes or 'something' but it has to go off,

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18744189

Flooding for years to come - some facts

I think the problem is compounded by the type of building materials used too. I live very near to a town which has quite spectacular floods every now and again. They are undoubtedly not helped by development on the flood plain but a lot of this development goes back about 30 years so is not that recent. However, these houses are always badly hit by flooding and they always cost a deal of money to repair.

Friends of mine live in a 200 year old house right next to the river. This is much more regularly flooded but the damage is minimal. The ground floor (including the stairs) are stone covered with easily removed rugs and the walls are natural brick with wooden beams. All the furniture can be moved upstairs in minutes and the boiler is deliberately house upstairs too.

Unfortunately, modern house building, even on flood plains, seems to ignore the potential for flooding and I do think that before planning consent is given there should be a greater requirement to make the fabric of the house more suitable to cope with what is, increasingly, the inevitability of flooding.

YANBU but I do feel sorry for people when there is urban flooding especially. Major problems in Belfast for example where the drains and sewage systems are just not sufficient for the sheer number of people living in those areas now. Of course all the paving in of gardens doesn't help.

Have to say I would not buy a house on a flood plain under any circumstances nor would I live too close to a river. Not worth the hassle.

You don't need to be too close either. I had a friend who lived a good 50 or 60 ft in height above the flood but all his ground floor sewage pipes backed up and spilled over into the house. Yeuch. New floors, carpets ....the works.

It does not always follow that you can check if a house is liable to flood before buying. The estate I live on had not flooded in the 40 years it was built. It has a very shallow stream trickling behind it. Four years ago the estate flooded - a combination of the stream blocking and drains being unable to cope. 60 houses were under water. Lots of money was spent to dredge the stream but it has come very close to flooding again this year.

While I agree that building on flood plains, concreting over large areas of land etc are not helping, it's important to remember that flooding is not a modern phenomena - there always have been floods, including some very devastating ones.