As the Government strives to fulfil its promise to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029, a TV documentary reveals houses are being built in areas with a high flood risk
ITV’s Tonight’s reporter Tom Barton visited spots around the country where residents of new homes were hit by flooding, with many struggling to get affordable house insurance. In 2020 Danielle Smith* bought her dream new build house in the Northumberland town of Blyth.
She says: “New builds are essentially more affordable because of help to buy. I thought ‘it’s a good way to kind of get on the property ladder.’ I was dead proud of myself and I felt like I had some security. I had my own place, no matter what happened, that was mine.”
But in April 2024 Blyth was hit by severe weather causing flash flooding. Danielle’s home was one of the worst hit, with flood water severely damaging the downstairs and ruining her furniture. She claimed for flood damage through her home insurance. Then, just six months later, history repeated itself, but this time she wasn’t insured. Unfortunately, she missed a letter sent eight days before, when she was staying at another address while repairs were carried out, telling her that her insurer was not renewing her policy, because of the flood risk.
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Devastated, Danielle says: “I worked so hard to even afford this house to try and better my life, Actually, my life would have been a lot better if I didn’t buy a house.” Eight other homes on the same estate were also hit by the two floods.
Nick’s kitchen, carpets and much-loved keepsakes were destroyed in the deluge. He says: “The trauma that we’ve all gone through with these houses, it’s something that you’d struggle to come back from. It’s always in the back of your head, it’s a constant thought.”
Adding insult to injury, Danielle and Nick discovered their street had flooded before they moved in. Another local had a photograph showing the street covered in flood water in 2019 when the homes were still being built.
And a government map of the address identifies the address as being at ‘high risk’ of surface water flooding. Paula Higgins, of the Homeowners’ Alliance, says: “Why would they get planning permission in the first place? Or if they are going to get planning permission they’ve got [to have ] really good defences there to make sure that this flooding isn’t occurring, because these are new houses.”
House builders Gleeson told Tonight it works with local agencies to mitigate potential issues. Their spokesperson said the development in Blyth was not and is still not deemed a flood risk by the Environment Agency. But the Environment Agency disputes this, telling Tonight they are only required to be consulted on flood risk from rivers and the sea, not surface water, which would instead be assessed by the local authority.
Meanwhile the Local Government Association says while councils play a lead role in protecting communities from flooding, more than 96% of planning decisions follow the Environment Agency’s flood risk advice. But projections from the Government’s flood risk assessment show that by 2050, 8 million properties will be at risk of flooding, that’s one in every four.
And while the government introduced a scheme in 2016 to help home owners in flood-risk areas to get affordable flood insurance, it doesn’t apply to new build homes like Danielle’s.
Paula Higgins explains: “If you’re living in a new build house that’s been built after 2009, you won’t be covered. Because we’ve a lot more information about where the flooding’s likely to occur, we should be able to build more flood resistant properties and not build in areas where it’s flood prone.” But, while today’s planning rules technically discourage house building in zones with higher flood risk, they don’t ban it outright.
Northumbrian Water has provided Danielle and the other eight affected homes with flood gates, and they’ve made a £4 million upgrade to increase capacity at the local sewage pumping system. But Danielle says she still can’t get insurance to cover flood damage.
And Tonight investigators found that, while underground tanks designed to give the water somewhere to go when it rains to prevent flooding had been positioned all around the estate, maintenance plans for these tanks should have been approved, and inspection logs should be submitted to the local council.
But they found evidence that for more than six years, that didn’t happen, meaning Gleeson were technically in breach of planning conditions. It is unknown whether this had an impact on the two floods in Blyth.
Now nine other Gleeson estates have been identified where planning conditions relating to the submission and approval of surface water drainage have been breached. One site is in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
Carlie Sivitter lives in an ex-council property opposite the newbuild estate which has stood here for decades and, to her knowledge, had never previously flooded. But in October 2023, while the nearby Gleeson estate was still being built, Storm Babet swept across the UK, and floodwater filled Carlie’s garden, before seeping into her house.
She says: “I started seeing a lot of water coming straight down the road towards us. It then breached the front door, coming into the hallway, breached the back door through the brickwork and just started pouring in everywhere, all at once. Everything was just destroyed, water damaged. It was unbelievable destruction. It was devastating.”
It is not known whether the Gleeson development was linked to the flooding that Carlie experienced, but Chesterfield Borough Council confirmed that Gleeson Homes were in breach of planning conditions on the site for more than seven years. There is no evidence of flooding at the other Gleeson sites where breaches occurred, and many were considered by councils to be technical.
Gleeson Homes told Tonight there was no connection between time taken to gain approvals and flooding issues. They say the flooding was caused by a blocked valve which was not under Gleeson Homes’ control.
Derbyshire County Council – the lead flood authority for the area – told Tonight they thoroughly investigated the flooding, and the partially blocked valve was only a minor part of what is a complex flooding issue in an area hit by previous floods. They also said that they have advised Gleeson on work they need to carry out to reduce flood risk on the estate.
Gleeson also said that clearance of planning conditions is a lengthy process, made more difficult by delays in planning departments, but that his does not delay any necessary works.
A Government spokesperson told Tonight it is investing £48 million to strengthen planning capacity and will ensure new developments are protected from flood risks, standards are raised for new homes, and that firm action is taken against developers who fall short – including unlimited fines.
As well as flooding, some new home owners say the quality of building work isn’t up to scratch. A recent survey found that 94% of new build buyers reported problems such as snags and defects to their builder.
Most new-build homes come with a two year builder warranty for defects, and a ten year structural warranty for major issues But getting new build problems sorted isn’t always straightforward as Daniel Bruce found when he bought a new flat in Camden in 2019.
He says: “When I came to view this it ticked all the boxes. I viewed it a number of times, we’ve had multiple surveys done and and we did everything we should have. I never imagined something could go wrong at this scale.”
From the moment he moved in, problems started. He says: “There was brown stain staining on the ceiling. The terrace was leaking. There were a lot of fire safety defects.
“When they started to repair my terrace, they started to find cracks in the brickwork and that whole panels of brick had been kind of moving. It was a full-time job tracking the defects, reaching out to people who I thought might help, and it took a real toll on my mental health.”
The developer commissioned a structural survey which said that in their opinion the defects are so severe that remedial building works could not viably restore the building’s structural integrity.
Daniel hired a lawyer to seek a resolution. But, seven years on, the warranty provider hasn’t paid out, and he remains trapped. So far, he has spent around £220,000 of his own money and also feels like he’s been failed by his local MP, who happens to be Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Daniel says: “My question to him would be, if he can’t resolve, can’t or won’t resolve a single defective new build in his own constituency, how can the public trust him to build 1.5 million more?”
When Tonight approached everyone from the Government to the warranty provider, no one wanted to take responsibility for Daniel’s housing nightmare. A Government spokesperson told Tonight that Camden Council has lodged an Improvement Notice against the developer. The developer, which has retained three flats in the block, said the building company did not deliver the service it was paid for – claiming they’ve “undertaken numerous repairs at no cost to the leaseholder”.
In turn, the building company says the developer was responsible for the building design, and that its work was inspected and it fixed defects it was told about. The building control consultants who signed off the building said regulatory compliance at completion doesn’t preclude future problems – this is what warranties are supposed to cover.
And the warranty provider said it’s been in dispute with residents over the amount of cover offered by the policy – a position recently confirmed by the High Court. Meanwhile, Daniel may take some comfort from the assurance that all parties say they are committed to working with residents to find a resolution.
*Name changed
*Floods: New Build Nightmares – Tonight, Thursdays 7:30pm, ITV