On 28/02/2013 12:33, Anne Burgess wrote:
I was listening yesterday to a discussion on R4 about the
difficulties of getting insurance fro properties susceptible to
flooding. One woman said she had been able to get insuarnce
because of a government scheme, but only with an excess of
£10,000. Others had been unable to get any cover at all, or to
seel their houses because prospective buyers cannot get a
mortgage.

There was a proposal to spread the risk by treating all
properties the same and spread the risk, so that the 2% who
regularly suffer from flooding would be able to get cover.

So, for example, someone who is buying contents insurance for a
tenth-floor flat in a block built half-way up a hill would have
to pay £3 extra on their premium to cover the flood risk for
people in houses that get flooded.

(OT - if they can agree to pool the risk of flooding over all
properties over the whole country, the logical next step would
be to pool the risk of car insurance over all drivers, so that
careful and responsible drivers who live in quite country areas
and keep a modest saloon in a garage would pay the same as
careless and irresponsible boy racers who keep expensive models
parked on the street; or to pool health risks so that people
with heart problems would pay the same for travel insurance as
young healthy people.)

It seems to me that the people who should be paying for the
flood damage are the developers who build on flood plains,
haughs, watermeadows, inches, whatever you like to call them,
and the local authorities who give planning permission for such
developments.

That would not help people in older properties that get flooded,
but at least it would place the blame squarely where it belongs
as far as new building is concerned. It would also be a powerful
disincentive to future building on flood-prone land.

Anne
Several metres above the floodplain of the River Spey




It's not only flood planes that suffer. The flash flood in Boscastle in
2004 really showed what was possible elsewhere. The trouble is, once a
property has been flooded, either due to weather or accident, the
property is flagged by the insurance companies and will be classed "at
risk" regardless of the cause or its position.

I came very close to that situation in 1997 (a year before the notorious
Easter Floods), a couple of years after buying this house, through no
fault of my own, or the position of my house, but due to the abject
stupidity of a new neighbour. I live on top of a hill, on relatively
flat land, but my neighbours garden had been built up to a couple of
inches higher than mine. Previous occupants of my house hadn't done the
situation any favours by building up their (my) garden to almost level
with the damp proof course. The neighbours then decided to pave the
whole of their back garden, laying the slabs on top of the existing
garden, making no provision for drainage whatsoever. One afternoon in
August 1997 Northampton suffered one of the worst thunder storms it had
ever experienced, and due to flooding at work, we finished early and I
drove home during the worst of it. On opening the back door, I found
water pouring off their garden onto mine, and the level was already up
to the top of the door plate. Another eight of an inch and water would
have been in the house. I went out immediately and smashed a hole into
the down pipe off the roof, which allowed the water to start escaping
down into the surface drainage system. Took a long time because the two
houses further down the block were also at risk.

The following year I remodelled my garden, dropping the first 12 feet
from the house down 6 inches, and working with the neighbours on the
other side, I installed a land drain across the back of all three
properties, feeding it into the down pipe, the only one on the block and
thankfully in my garden. (Confronting the other neighbour about their
lack of drainage, I was told to F.O. Nice. They obviously didn't get
included in the new drainage system.) Since then, despite water pouring
off their garden on a regular basis, the rest of us have had no further
problems. But if that water had entered my house, there would have been
nothing I could have done, but my insurance would have suffered by my
house being flagged "at risk". My insurance company asks if my house is
more than 400 metres from any water course such as a river. I can
honestly answer "Yes". In addition to that it is some 30 metres above
the Billing Brook, nearly a kilometre away. Why should I be permanently
penalised if my house had been flooded that day? The people of Boscastle
are probably already asking themselves that question.

Something needs to be done about flood insurance. What, I don't know.
But I do think Central Government have to shoulder some of the blame and
cost. Currently, Northamptonshire is under government orders to build
over 50,000 new properties by 2026. But the majority of land specified
for this development is on flood planes, inevitable since so much of the
county is in the vicinity of the River Nene, a river that is already
notorious for flooding. And having already covered the whole of Upton
Flats on the outskirts of Northampton with houses, a large swathe of
natural flood plane no longer exists, putting properties further up- and
down-stream at risk. And Northamptonshire is not the only county under
this obligation. Government policy on house provision HAS to change, not
only to protect new developments from flooding, but existing properties too.

And as a foot note to this lot, most of the land either side of the
River Nene from Weedon west of Northampton down to Peterborough in the
east, a distance of over 55 miles, is still under water from the deluge
just before Christmas.

jim, Northampton