We have summarized the useful and key information required to better understand how flood risk impacts your commercial development and the importance of an FRA to support your planning application.

How does flood risk affect a commercial or industrial planning application?

Industrial and commercial projects, including manufacturing plants and warehouses, can fall under a variety of vulnerability classifications and therefore aren’t necessarily acceptable in all Flood Zones.

Regardless of the vulnerability classification, any development within Flood Zone 2 or 3, or within a Critical Drainage Area, is required to be supported by a Flood Risk Assessment (FRA). If your project site is larger than 1ha, even in Flood Zone 1, it will require an FRA.

Without an FRA, the whole planning application could be rejected at planning, especially if your industrial project involves dangerous chemicals or users on site needing access/egress to the development.

​​Each application therefore must be viewed individually; no application is the same. A Flood Risk Assessment iterates this sentiment. Each assessment is done on a case by case basis, especially in relation to the approach and methods applied to each development.

How are our team can support you

Industrial and Commercial projects can be much larger in scale compared to other types of development in terms of built footprint and land coverage. This creates additional complexities, especially when the development is considered vulnerable by the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

We make sure we treat every development site as unique. Some may consist of only one flood zone, while others could consist of multiple flood zones and be affected by multiple sources of flooding. If that’s the case with your project, we would strongly recommend consulting early in the design phase of your project to understand and plan where certain types of development would be best suited.

​By adopting this approach, we can support the evolution of the project. This allows us to review the local policy, creating a more acceptable design to the regulators on the first submission. In our experience, this greatly reduces the risk of having to resubmit planning applications on the basis of flooding. This reduces design costs, project timeframes, and provides an added incentive due to our experience of being able to advise of costs early. In turn, this allows for project budgets to be managed and forecast more accurately.

​Through our experience, our team can work from the pre-planning stages through to submission of the application advising on the design, layout, and mitigation measures of development.

​If you are proposing a commercial or industrial planning application and not sure if you require a flood risk assessment or which flood zone you are located in, contact our team using the form below and give us some more details about your project.