The All Party Parliamentary Group for Excellence in the Built Environment has announced its third Inquiry, which will look at the problems caused to the UK by flooding and examine the potential for mitigation and significantly improving flood resilience.

The All Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry is now inviting firms, organisations and individuals to submit evidence on how the country might best be able to deal with the problem posed by flooding and minimise the impact on homes, businesses, lives and the loss to the UK economy as a whole.  

The Commission is particularly looking for evidence of practical strategies that will, for example, improve flood protection, adaptation and mitigation, enable a better assessment of flood risk and improvement in insurance and valuation issues. It is also looking for evidence that will exemplify effective coordination that will bring together organisations that have a part to play in any aspect of improving the prevention of, or resilience to, flooding.

The APPG for EBE Commission of Inquiry comprises members of both Houses of Parliament, senior members of the construction professions and key influencers and decision makers in other aspects of society.

Deadline for written submissions is 3rd October 2014. The Committee said it is not looking for submissions which simply outline the scope of the problem, although identifying challenges and barriers that need to be overcome in order to achieve progress may be an important aspect of submissions.

The Commission of Inquiry will examine written submissions and will set up roundtable sessions, at which oral evidence will be presented to the Commission directly.

The Commission will also hold formal sessions, likely to be on Mondays (late afternoons/early evenings) in the Houses of Parliament or Portcullis House in late October and November 2014 and invite selected organisations to present oral evidence in support of their submissions.

Oliver Colvile MP, chair of the APPGEBE commented:

“As we saw during this winter’s storms, climate change is making flooding an increasingly serious threat to property in this country. Flood mitigation and resilience will need to play a bigger and bigger role in our considerations of the built environment. This is an exciting opportunity to hear from stakeholders about how Government and industry can work to create a more flood resilient built environment and we look forward to receiving evidence from across the sector.”

Written submissions should be send electronically to the APPGEBE Secretary, Graham Watts OBE at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

The findings of the Inquiry into Flood Mitigation and Resilience will be published in early 2015.