Surface-water flooding has no clear owner and SuDS Schedule 3 is unenacted

Responsibility for surface-water flooding is split across lead local flood authorities, water companies and the planning system, with no clear hierarchy, a structure both the Climate Change Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee have criticised. Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 would mandate sustainable drainage and remove the automatic right to connect new developments to public sewers. It has been in force in Wales for years and remains uncommenced in England. A 2025 amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would have commenced it was withdrawn, and DEFRA's 2025 National SuDS Standards carry no statutory force.

About three million properties face surface-water flood risk, and climate change is raising it faster than any other flood source. The automatic right to connect keeps loading new development onto ageing sewers. Voluntary standards are widely ignored.

Commence Schedule 3 in England, which makes sustainable drainage mandatory and ends the automatic right to connect. Give the Environment Agency the role of overseeing and monitoring delivery across all sources of flooding. The power to commence has sat on the statute book since 2010.

// State-led: Instrument: commencement order for FWMA 2010 Schedule 3 plus Environment Agency empowerment; purely a government decision.

Schedule 3 is already law and running in Wales, three million properties face the fastest-rising flood source, and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is an open vehicle for commencement.