Floods: Housing

Miss McIntosh
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2008, Official Report, column 122W, on floods: housing, how many of the properties estimated to be at risk of flooding in each year are in each region.

Huw Irranca-Davies
Please find in the following table the estimated number of properties at the risk of flooding from rivers and the sea by Environment Agency Region.

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|Environment Agency Region|2004     |2005     |2006     |
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|Anglian Region           |307,400  |314,200  |317,600  |
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|Midlands Region          |214,300  |222,300  |222,400  |
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|North East Region        |289,200  |301,600  |298,100  |
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|North West Region        |204,600  |210,000  |210,900  |
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|South West Region        |160,600  |168,700  |169,100  |
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|Southern Region          |169,200  |174,900  |175,300  |
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|Thames Region            |711,800  |734,925  |736,200  |
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|Environment Agency Wales |171,500  |177,163  |176,700  |
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|Total                    |2,228,600|2,303,788|2,306,300|
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The Environment Agency and DEFRA did not record properties by region before 2004.

The difference in the estimated number of properties at risk of flooding each year is mainly due to the improvements and refinements of the data and the modelling techniques used by the Environment Agency for the National Flood Risk Assessment.