London council plans to build 11,000 homes in flood zones

Neighbours help move a waterlogged car in Whipps Cross, Walthamstow in 2021

An east London council is planning to build around 11,000 homes in medium to high-risk flood zones.

It amounts to around half of all the sites earmarked in Waltham Forest's new draft plan.

Parts of the borough are susceptible to severe flooding when there are heavy bouts of rainfall.

The plans require a sign-off from the government's planning inspectorate before being finalised.

The planning inspectors previously raised "significant concerns" about whether the council's target of 27,000 new homes built by 2035 was "justified and deliverable" at a public inquiry into the draft plan last week.

At the hearing, the council argued that it needed to go "as far as possible" to meet the borough's housing needs.

• Prepare for flooding now, public urged

It comes as another east London council recently had its planning powers diminished by failing to reach its targets.

Havering Council will have to approve all developments unless it has "adverse impacts" or face legal costs of a successful government appeal.

Waltham Forest's assistant director of place and design, Sarah Parsons, said the council intended to use funds raised from the new developments to install floodwater storage and sustainable urban drainage systems.

Waltham Forest Civic Society member, Robert Gay, alleged the council's study of flood zones was "not detailed or compliant" and suggested the council was "downplaying" the risk.

In 2021, many Whipps Cross residents were waist-deep in August floodwaters and Whipps Cross Hospital was also flooded, losing power with 100 patients evacuated.

Lea Bridge resident, Claire Weiss, wrote to the inspectors expressing concerns that the Dagenham Brook near her home is at full capacity two or three times a year.

The council's corporate director of regeneration, planning and delivery, Ian Rae, agreed flooding was a "huge issue" for the borough but argued that developments which were designed to control the flow of water were "part of the solution".

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