Flood Risk Assessment – Catford SE6
Southwest Environmental Limited were commissioned by a client to undertake a Flood Risk Assessment at a site in South East London.
The project was for conversion of a basement to living quarters. This is usually one of the more difficult situation to get passed off with the Environment Agency (as consultees in planning) as a flooded basement is not a very good thing / situation:
- It is hard to dry out.
- It is hard to get flood data (most relates to ground level).
- Hard to prove people will be safe.
All these things / factors stack up against the normal bunch / collection of criteria / things that must be met to satisfy both the Environment Agency and the Local Planning Authority.
In this instance there was a slight advantage as the basement on this site was more akin to a lower ground floor, being open on 3 sides, only being below ground level on the street frontage.
However, it has still been necessary to make a detailed study of site levels relative to the flood levels. Only in this way can SWEL provide mitigation measures when considering the risk involved.