The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has published its Fourth Report on Flood Resilience in England, setting out a series of urgent recommendations to strengthen the nation’s response to increasing flood risks driven by extreme weather, urbanisation, and climate change.
While the report spans a broad range of issues – from agricultural land use to governance reform – this alert focuses on three areas of particular relevance to the insurance sector and its customers:
The publication also comes ahead of the imminent release of Professor Bonfield’s follow-up report ‘Floodproof: An Action Plan to Build Resilience’, which will assess progress since his original 2016 action plan and propose a new roadmap for government and industry.
The Committee’s report echoes the concerns raised in our earlier paper to parliament about the government’s ambition to build 1.5 million new homes and the associated flood risk.
The EAC concludes that the planning system “is not keeping pace with the modern realities of flooding”, with development continuing in areas of known flood risk. It warns that “development should not be permitted in areas known to be at high risk of flooding” and calls for flood risk to be treated as a strategic constraint within the National Planning Policy Framework.
The Committee recommends that:
The Committee has sent a clear message to government:
“The Government should now commence Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 without further delay, making SuDS mandatory in all new developments.”
Despite repeated commitments, Schedule 3 remains unimplemented, leaving SuDS optional and inconsistently applied. Witnesses to the inquiry described this as a “critical missed opportunity” to embed resilience at the design stage.
This reinforces our clients’ long-standing position that SuDS are essential for managing surface water flooding, which affects an estimated 4.6 million homes in England. Without mandatory implementation, new housing developments risk worsening flood vulnerability and driving future insurance claims.
The EAC also calls for better integration between planning policy, flood management, and sewerage infrastructure, and urges government to ensure that by 2027, surface water flood risk is “consistently quantified and fully integrated into national flood risk assessments.”
The Committee dedicates a full section of its report to the role of insurance, describing it as a “cornerstone of household and market stability.”
Key findings include:
The Committee recommends:
These recommendations point toward a more integrated approach linking insurance, mortgage lending, and resilience investment – and suggest that insurers will play an increasingly strategic role in shaping future flood adaptation policy.
The EAC’s report marks a significant milestone in the national conversation on flood resilience. Its recommendations – particularly the urgent call to commence Schedule 3 and the emphasis on planning reform – reflect issues long raised by the insurance industry.
With the Bonfield ‘Floodproof’ report due shortly, further guidance is expected on how public and private stakeholders can collaborate to close the resilience gap, including practical steps for property-level protection and community-scale adaptation.
We will continue to monitor these developments closely and look to further engage with policymakers to ensure that future housing, infrastructure, and insurance frameworks are aligned with long-term flood resilience objectives.
For further information please contact:
Natalie Larnder - Partner and Head of Market Affairs
Matthew Rogers - Partner and Head of Property Risks & Coverage
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