Bright Blue, the ‘independent’ think tank (open to liberal conservatives everywhere) has published In Deep Water? Mapping the impacts of flooding in the UK since 2007

Also covered in The Guardian

From the research

The COVID-19 pandemic has, sadly, shown that government planning for national emergencies and crises can fail to imagine the full range of risks and responses entailed. We need to make sure this is not the case for flooding.

Key findings include

• Flooding is an issue for the Government’s nascent ‘levelling up’ agenda.
• Urban drainage is a national resilience issue.
• Local authorities need more funding and support to manage surface water flood risk.
• Flooding is an issue for the Government’s house-building agenda.
• Developers with too much market power and too little accountability are a recipe for climate maladaptation.
• Flooding impacts in the UK under climate change will be made better or worse by the state of our infrastructure.
• In some areas, the UK’s adaptation efforts on flooding could be more preventative and less reactive.

The report includes a massive 24 recommendations, most of which have been around for years, but nice to see this lovely bunch catching up.

Download the report here