Cornwall Council is a Lead Local Flood Authority. It is required to investigate and publish reports on significant flood incidents in Cornwall under Section 19 of the Flood and Water Management Act (2010).
A significant incident is defined as:
- 5 or more properties flooded internally from the same source of flooding, or
- 1 or more properties flooded internally that has also flooded internally within the previous 5 years, or
- Trunk roads (A30 and A38), principal A roads or main distributor roads linking urban centres with the primary network are closed for 4 hours or more, or
- Secondary distributor roads (B and C roads), linking villages to the distributor network are closed for 10 hours or more, or
- Local access roads serving limited numbers of properties are closed for 24 hours or more, or
- There is risk to human life.
A single event, such as extreme rainfall across Cornwall, may contain many incidents. These incidents may be in different places and caused by different sources of flooding.
The Flood Investigation Reports determine likely causes of significant flooding and identify the appropriate risk management authority to take forward any necessary actions.
Cornwall Council creates a Flood Incident Record when it becomes aware of a flood event, through the:
- media,
- Emergency Service logs,
- Environment Agency and the public or
- through our own investigations.
This identifies the source of flooding, the responsible agency and any follow up actions.
The Section 19 reporting format applied by Cornwall Council provides a commentary on the year's main events. A weather conditions synopsis is provided for significant incidents. (Where applicable). There are also individual incident Flood Investigation Reports, for incidents meeting the above criteria.
Published Flood Investigation Reports are based upon the internally held Flood Incident Records. They do not identify properties other than businesses, such as pubs, already in the media.
We may publish Flood Investigation Reports for incidents that do not meet the criteria. We will do this if we consider the flood incident to be significant due to its severity, such as a single property that has not flooded before.
A chronology of major flood events in Cornwall was compiled for the Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment in 2011.
Many small flood incidents go unreported. If you wish to report a flood incident you can do this by submitting a Flood Incident Record using the online form. Alternatively, contact us using the details below.
Please find below the Section 19 Reports for the last 10 years:
- 2012 Section 19 Report
- 2013 Section 19 Report
- 2014 Section 19 Report
- 2015 No Section 19 Reports Required
- 2016 No Section 19 Reports Required
- 2017 Section 19 Report
- 2018 No Section 19 Reports Required
- 2019 Section 19 Report
- 2020 No Section 19 Reports Required
- 2021 No Section 19 Reports Required
- 2022 No Section 19 Reports Required