Erewash flats flood risk

The planned retirement apartment complex off Station Road, Sandiacre. Image from Corstorphine & Wright.

A developer which had scrapped flat plans in a Derbyshire town’s highest risk flood zone has got the scheme back on the table and it is now set for approval.

In early March, McCarthy Stone had scrapped its plans to build a four-storey block of 53 retirement flats off Station Road, Sandiacre, next to Lidl and the Erewash Canal.

This, the Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed, was due to the land having its flood risk reassessed by the Environment Agency, moving up from flood zone two (the second of three levels), to flood zone three, the highest probability of flooding short of a functioning floodplain.

That reassessment had pushed all homes off Cross Street, Gas Street, Westminster Avenue, Regent Street, Rutland Grove, Bridge Street, Grasmere Street and Canal Street, many of which flooded extensively under several feet of floodwater during Storm Babet in October 2023, into the highest risk flood zone.

Following the LDRS reporting, McCarthy Stone had refused to comment.

However, documents show that three weeks after the March article, the firm submitted new documents to Erewash Borough Council, which is now recommending that councillors approve the plans.

These documents show that there are no other viable alternative sites with a lower risk of flooding in the Sandiacre urban area, which the developer says makes this location acceptable.

It claims the benefit to the community in providing specialist accommodation for older people in an area of housing need, with links to shops and services, on derelict brownfield land “outweighs the identified flood risk”.

The firm says the accommodation type, for retired persons aged 55 and over, is classed as housing for residents who are “more vulnerable”, which, within planning law, simply requires other sites to be unavailable – an exception test.

Had these would-be residents been classed as “highly vulnerable”, development would not be permitted under existing planning laws.

The firm details in a further document submitted in late March: “The flood risk to the proposal will be mitigated, preventing flood risk to life and property.”

It says the ground floor level will be raised to sit at 36.9 metres above sea level, with mapping showing flood zone three sitting at 36.05 metres (85 centimetres lower), zone two reaching 36.5 metres (40 centimetres) and zone 1 stretching from 36.5 metres and up.

The firm also says: “A place of safety shall be provided on the first floor at 39.4 metres.” 

Housebuilding in flood zone three previously used to be effectively outlawed but planning legislation now allows for exceptional circumstances in flood zone three to allow homes, in a bid to hit the 1.5 million targeted new homes put forward by the Labour Government.

The Guardian reported last year that 100,000 homes could be built in the next five years in the highest-risk flood zone.

In March, the developer had written to the East Midlands Combined County Authority saying it was withdrawing its application, and a bid for £795,000 in funding, due to a flood risk reassessment “which adversely impacts scheme delivery”.

Borough council planners, recommending approval, wrote: “The revised flood risk assessment demonstrates that the occupants should be safe from flooding thanks to the proposed floor levels and will have a suitable means of escape from the site in the event of a flood via Station Road. It also demonstrates that the proposal will not increase flood risk elsewhere.”