Like a Fish Out of Water: The Relationship between Planning and Flood Risk Management in the UK

摘要

Currently, in England and Wales there are approximately 21 million properties. Of these, around 1.8 million homes and 130000 commercial properties are at risk from inland or coastal flooding, representing, together with agricultural land at risk, around ￡220 billion of assets (Association of British Insurers (ABI), 2002). The scale of this problem is made more surprising by the knowledge that land-use controls have been in place since 1947. Indeed, attention has been drawn to the possibility that the planning profession has exacerbated the problems by allowing development to continue to take place on floodplains (Penning-Rowsell, 2001; Wilkins, 2001; White & Howe, 2002). The role of the planning system has been placed under the media and political spotlight in recent years, as a result of a number of serious flooding events which have been well documented for their severity and their scale. Since 1998 the UK has experienced the two most severe episodes of flooding since records began, the first at Easter 1998 and the second in autumn 2000. The worst of these, autumn 2000, caused an estimated ￡1 billion of damage and brought chaos to many parts of England and Wales (Environment Agency, 2001; Howe & White, 2002). Following major flooding episodes, warnings have been given estimating that the threat of inland flooding will become increasingly common, as both the proposed development needs and the impact of global warming increase the possibility of future problems from rainfall (Bye & Homer, 1998; Hulme & Jenkins, 1998; White & Howe, 2002; Christensen & Christensen, 2003; Evans et al, 2004).