Building Standards: Flooding and groundwater guidance
Overview
The 2018-19 Programme for Government included a commitment to develop a property flood resilience action plan and in December 2018, the Scottish Government published the ‘Flood resilient properties: framework for Scotland’. This established the Property Flood Resilience Delivery Group (PFRDG), which was tasked with preparing and delivering an action plan to help property owners take action to make their properties more resilient against the impacts of flooding.
As a member of the PFRDG, the Building Standards Division (BSD) has played an important role in considering how Property Flood Resilience (PFR) measures may be incorporated into new and existing homes.
In November 2019, the PFRDG published Living with flooding: an action plan for delivering property flood resilience in Scotland. One of the key objectives of the action plan is influencing policy and providing clear guidance on PFR to industry, property owners and occupiers. In this regard, building standards officials committed to identify opportunities to strengthen the PFR guidance provided within Section 3.3 Flooding and groundwater of the Building Standards Technical Handbooks.
Officials have engaged with internal and external stakeholders through the convening of a working group, which had 8 quarterly meetings between June 2022 and September 2024.
The working group identified that the current guidance in Section 3.3 Flooding and groundwater is out of date when considered against more recently published documents such as the Construction Industry Research and Information Association’s Code of Practice for Property Flood Resilience and the now revised British Standard 85500: 2025 – Flood resilient construction – Improving the flood performance of buildings.
This consultation seeks views on proposed updates to the guidance in Section 3.3 of the Technical Handbooks.
Read the consultation paper. The consultation paper contains full background information for this consultation. You may find it useful to read or refer to while responding.
Consultation questions preview
The consultation questions are included here for your reference. Please click 'Begin consultation' at the bottom of this page to proceed.
1. Introduction - Do you have any comments on the amended introductory information setting out background to the issues to be addressed by standard 3.3?
2. Flood risk assessment - Do you find this expansion of the guidance on flood risk assessment useful in better framing the action expected and where to access supporting information on undertaking the assessment?
3. Groundwater - Do you have any comments on the revised guidance on assessing groundwater risks?
4. Resilient construction in flood risk areas - This is a very significant expansion on previous guidance on flood resilient construction. Do you have any views on the usefulness of this additional information, including example construction details?
5. Resilient construction in flood risk areas - Are there additional construction details or other useful information which could be included in the draft?
6. General - Having reviewed the proposed changes in the context of current guidance to standard 3.3, do you agree there is a need to update the guidance in Section 3.3 (Flooding and groundwater) of the Technical Handbooks?
7. General - Does the draft guidance provide enough information to understand what is required to achieve the Mandatory Standard 3.3, Flooding and groundwater? “Standard 3.3 Every building must be designed and constructed in such a way that there will not be a threat to the building or the health of the occupants as a result of flooding and the accumulation of groundwater.”
8. General - Do you consider that the proposed draft guidance will add to the potential cost of development?
9. Annex 3.B Building Standards Flood Guide - Do you agree that the introduction of the guidance in Annex 3.B offers further useful information to support informed practice in flood risk assessment and the application of property flood resilience principles?
10. Annex 3.B Building Standards Flood Guide - Are there any other issues that you consider this Annex could address to further improve knowledge and understanding on this topic?
Useful information about responding to this consultation
As you complete your response, each page will provide the option to 'Save and come back later' at the bottom. This means you can save your progress and return to the consultation at any time before it closes. If you don't use this feature and leave the consultation midway through, your response will be lost.
Once you have submitted your response, you can enter your email address to get a pdf copy of your answers sent to you.
On the 'About You' page at the end of this consultation, organisations will have the opportunity to tell us more about their work and/or how their response was informed.
After the consultation has closed there will be a few months delay before any responses are published. This is because we must check any responses to be published abide by our Terms of Use.
An analysis report will usually be published some months after the consultation has closed. This report will summarise the findings based on all responses submitted. It will be published on the Scottish Government website and you may be notified about it if you choose to share your email address with us. You can also join our consulation mailing list where we regularly list newly published analysis reports (as well as new consultations).
Why your views matter
The purpose of this consultation is to consider updates to the guidance within Section 3.3 Flooding and groundwater of the Building Standards Technical Handbooks with a particular focus on property flood resilience for new buildings and new building work that is being undertaken in areas identified as being at risk of flooding.
The intent of the proposed updates is to provide more guidance and information to enable designers to achieve compliance with Mandatory Standard 3.3 and to support building standards verifiers in their assessment of projects against the requirements of the standard.
Consultation is an essential part of the policy-making process. It gives us the opportunity to consider your opinion and expertise on a proposed area of work. The feedback and responses will be analysed and used as part of the decision-making process, along with a range of other available information and evidence.
Give us your views
Interests
- Building and Planning
- Main hub
Share
Share on Twitter Share on Facebook