Housing: Floods
Communities and Local Government

Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps have been taken to implement the Government's undertakings in reply to the Agriculture Committee's recommendation that a clear presumption should be made against future development in flood plain land where the flooding risk attached to a particular development is deemed to outweigh the benefits, given to the Agriculture Committee in response to its report Flood and Coastal Defence, HC707, 27 October 1998.

Iain Wright (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Hartlepool, Labour)

In December 2006 we published Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 25 "Development and flood risk", which aims to avoid inappropriate development in flood risk areas and direct development away from high risk areas by ensuring that sites at little or no risk of flooding are developed in preference to areas at higher risk. In the 10 per cent. of England at high risk of flooding PPS25 ensures that essential homes and services can be provided where it can be demonstrated that the need for the development outweighs the flood risk and the development will be safe and not increase risk.

PPS25 strengthens and clarifies the policy established by Planning Policy Guidance Note (PPG) 25, which was published in 2001 in response to the Agricultural Committee recommendation and the floods of Easter 1998 and autumn 2000.