Inadequate planning for climate driven increases in surface water flood risk: an audit of England’s local flood risk management strategies

The flood risk management policy and implementation framework in England is overseen by complex layers of governance bodies via a range of overlapping legislations, policies and strategies. Within this, responsibility for surface water flood management is largely delegated to 152 local authorities. In this research, the local flood risk management strategies (LFRMSs) produced by these local authorities were audited using a systematic, largely objective method to identify alignment with a range of factors that good strategies should include. The aim was to determine if the strategies were meeting their minimum statutory requirements and whether they were developing robust climate change adaptation plans. The findings show that LFRMSs are, in the main, meeting their minimum statutory requirements. However, there is a widespread issue across most LFRMSs regarding inadequate consideration of increasing surface water flood risk from climate changes. Therefore, we conclude that surface water flood risk plans are not adequate in England largely because of the range in quality across the local authorities. Nonetheless, there is some evidence of good practice within the LFRMS portfolio, which is discussed in the context of the ongoing update process of these strategies. This research is the first examination of the full suite of LFRMSs and, therefore, is the first time that the complete approach to surface water flood management has been assessed in England.