22,000 properties at risk from flooding
THOUSANDS OF HOMES IN HIGH LONG-TERM DANGER FROM WATER
MORE than 22,000 properties in Greater Manchester are at medium or high risk of being flooded.
That’s according to the latest figures from an Environment Agency database.
The figures – updated last month – show that 4,038 properties in Greater Manchester postcodes are at a high long-term risk – meaning there is a one in 30 chance or higher that they will be flooded within a year.
Of those, 74 per cent (3,004) are residential properties.
A further 18,806 properties are considered to be at medium risk – meaning there is a chance of between one in 30 and one in 100 that they will experience flooding each year.
The postcode area with the highest proportion of highrisk properties in Greater Manchester is WN7 4E, in Wigan.
Some 263 properties there have a high risk of flooding – 58pc of the total.
That was followed by M3 5E (71 of 143 properties at high risk), and WN7 2U (122 of 273 properties). That’s looking at postcodes with 10 or more properties. Despite numbering in the thousands, medium and high flood risk only applies to 2pc of all properties in Greater Manchester, and 1pc of residential properties. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service attended 371 incidents of flooding in 2018/19.
That compares to 387 the year before.
Not all flooding incidents attended by fire crews are caused by the weather.
While many will be due to storms and heavy rain, some might be caused by burst water mains and properties where people have accidentally left taps running.
In England as a whole, the figure fell from 15,670 flooding incidents to 13,360 in 2018/19.
You can check whether your property is among those at long-term risk using the government’s online tool at https://flood-warninginformation.service.gov.uk/long-termflood-risk