Flooding and Rivers

We would place a greater emphasis on flood prevention in planning guidelines, recognising that climate change will make serious flooding events more likely in future.

We would:

• Deliver a nationwide standard of resilience to flooding with an annual likelihood of 0.5 per cent by 2050. We will ask the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales to present its assessment of the investment needed to achieve this target.
• Commit to increasing the level of investment in flood management, including natural flood management, to £500m over the course of this Senedd term.
• Amend planning regulations to ensure that all new development is resilient to flooding with an annual likelihood of 0.5 per cent for its lifetime and does not increase risk elsewhere.
• Ask Local Lead Flood Authorities to present updated plans for their respective areas

We would ensure that responsibility for flood management by relevant authorities is clearly delineated and would work with local authorities to identify those neighbourhoods that are at high risk of flooding as well as having a high proportion of vulnerable residents. We would prioritise working with these communities to develop and fund community climate adaption and prevention plans, including nature-based solutions.

Operating through Natural Resources Wales we will create a network of river system operators, responsible for each river catchment, preventing pollution, and coordinating investment in alternative natural flood management.

We commit to holding a public inquiry into learning the lessons from the extensive flooding that occurred in 2020 across Wales and to act on its recommendations.