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More than 700,000 homes across the ten English councils now governed by Reform UK are projected to face medium or higher flood risk by the middle of the century, exclusive analysis of national modelling by Byline Times and Bylines Network shows.
That is roughly one in five households in the party’s local strongholds – communities stretching from Lincolnshire’s sinking coastline and Lancashire’s Morecambe Bay to the Humber Estuary and the Thames-Medway delta in Kent.
The contradiction could hardly be sharper. While Reform rails against Net Zero targets and has pledged to scrap local climate-resilience programmes, its own councils sit in some of England’s most flood-exposed zones.
Commenting on these findings, MPs, local councillors and major British environmental groups said that Reform UK’s stance would be disastrous for voters in its own constituencies.
Olivia Blake MP, Chair of the new cross-party Climate and Nature Crisis Caucus in parliament consisting of Labour, Conservative and Green Party politicians, said: “It’s cutting your nose off to spite your face. Reducing flood defence spending is not something that I would be encouraging any area to do when we’ve seen one-in-100 year flood events happening much, much more regularly up and down the country. They will face angry communities if they do not take the right actions on these issues.” She condemned politicians who make climate and nature issues part of a “culture war”.
Standing out in Aviva’s Building Future Communities 2025 report are Lincolnshire for “severe exposure along England’s east coast around the Wash”, and Lancashire, where homes at risk around Morecambe Bay could rise by up to 34 percentage points by mid-century, stand out.
“Part of the district ward I represent in Lincoln has suffered flooding for three consecutive winters, with some residents forced to evacuate their homes in 2023” said Lincolnshire Councillor Christopher Martin of the Liberal Democrats. “This is a historic and recurring issue, disproportionately affecting one of the most deprived communities in the city.”
According to Aviva’s national analysis, based on the Environment Agency’s National Assessment of Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk in England 2024, the number of English homes facing flood risk is expected to increase by around 27% – from 6.3 million today to 8 million by the 2050s.
Coastal exposure is intensifying fastest: 2.4 million properties at risk now climb to 3.2 million by mid-century as sea levels rise and storm surges strengthen. Surface-water flooding – when intense rain overwhelms drains and streets – is also accelerating, with the most exposed category forecast to grow by two-thirds.
Yet Reform’s leadership continues to dismiss climate science as ‘green hysteria’. Yet by the 2050s, climate-driven flooding across its ten authorities could impose average yearly damages of about £285 million – equivalent to roughly £7 billion in cumulative losses by 2050 if no new defences are built.
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While most the rest of the media seems to happy to give the handful of Reform MPs undue prominence, Byline Times is committed to tracking the activities of Nigel Farage’s party when actually in power
