There is an article in The Times today about “homes built in flood-prone areas ‘will never get insurance'”. And rightly so, I would say. But surely housebuilders and those in charge of planning at the local council can find a way forward in agreeing to build innovatively. They could build concrete-based houses on stilts. The kind of houses that can be seen in Australia or in certain parts of Asia.
Obviously the utilities would have to be above the ground as well but if the barrier to this kind of construction is cultural then that isn’t a good enough reason to abandon building houses on floodplains. It is possible and if – as we are constantly told – there is a massive housing problem in the UK, surely this is the time for imagination and innovation to overcome the impossibility of obtaining insurance for conventionally built houses on flood-prone areas.
The UK is known for its innovation. We have bright scientists. That’s one of the strengths of the UK. Let’s use those strengths to overcome this insurance problem.
The Times tells us that “Thousands of uninsurable homes could be built in flood-prone areas if ministers press on with planning reforms, Britain’s leading insurers have warned”.
The current UK government has embarked on an effort to build 1.5 million homes by 2029. They are well behind that objective. In order to promote the building of homes the government is considering change in planning rule that steers developers away from flood-prone areas.
The idea is to build conventional houses and then build flood defences around them. That would seem to me to be inefficient and probably untenable financially. Here’s an opportunity to really create something beautiful. Something which stands out as being different. Let’s make difference an attractive quality.
The developers could ask the experts in Australia how they do it and get on with it. It would require some enlightenment (which is highly unlikely) from council planners but if developers and planners could work in tandem and constructively then I can’t see a real problem here.
