Overview
- Aviva reports that 11% of the 396,602 homes built in England between 2022 and 2024 sit in medium or high flood-risk areas, up from 8% in 2013–2022, with a projection of roughly one in seven by mid‑century.
- The insurer warns that homes built since 2009 are ineligible for the Flood Re scheme, heightening the risk that newer properties in flood zones become hard to insure.
- Concentration is greatest in and around the capital, with a third of the constituencies building the most homes in flood‑risk areas located in London or Essex.
- Planning guidance was loosened in September to allow development in surface‑water flood zones if defences are installed, a shift aligned with the push to accelerate housebuilding.
- The government calls Aviva’s figures misleading for not accounting for defences and cites a £10.5bn flood programme set to benefit nearly 900,000 properties by 2036, alongside a pledge to build 1.5 million homes safely.