Number of homes to be built in flood zone
Case reference FOI2021/00277
Published 13 January 2022
Request
I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to find out from the local authority how many homes it has allocated as part of its local plan to be built in medium and high-risk flood-zones?
The information relates to the council's latest local plan. However, if the council's local plan is out of date then please supply the number of homes that are currently allocated in its draft, examination or final adoption form clarifying this detail.
A high-risk flood zone is designated by the Environment Agency (EA) as a flood zone 3 whilst a medium flood-risk zone is designated as a flood zone 2.
However, the local planning authority should provide this information based on its own designation of flood zone 3a or 3b.
I would prefer to receive this information electronically, preferably as a data set in Excel and not as a PDF, to include the following information:
• The name of the local plan e.g. Wirral's Local Plan 2020 to 2035
• The number of homes allocated for flood zone 2 area e.g. 5,500 homes in a flood risk 2 area.
• The number of homes allocated to be built in a flood zone 3a and 3b e.g. 3,000 homes in flood risk zone 3a and 500 homes in zone 3b
• Details of any planned infrastructure flood defences that accompany the local plan e.g. a new hard wall to be installed along the river X, reducing X many homes from a high risk to medium risk.
Response
In the current adopted Local Plan (the Herefordshire Local Plan Core Strategy), there are no housing allocations. The plan includes a set of strategic housing locations but no OS (Ordnance Survey) based housing allocations.
This plan can be viewed on the Herefordshire Council website via the following link, which I trust is helpful:
https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/downloads/download/123/adopted_core_strategy
Work has commenced upon a new local plan, but it is not yet at a stage where draft allocations have been proposed.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.