Latest UK flood plans fail to address growing risk of flash floods

By Damian Carrington

Flash flooding, which struck a swathe of southern and eastern England on Friday, is a greater threat to homes, roads and railways than river or coastal flooding. Yet it was completely excluded from the government’s National Flood Resilience Review, published last week.

Worse, the risk of flash flooding is rising, as climate change leads to more intense, more frequent rainstorms: the Met Office has shown that extremely wet days have become more common. On Friday, half a month’s rain was dumped in one day.

The problem is the overloading of Britain’s antiquated drainage and sewer networks, compounded by the continued concreting over of land for development. The surface water can neither be absorbed or quickly drained away, leading to flash floods.