Hi,

There is a good possibility that we may be moving from Leeds to the
Cambridge/Huntingdon area this year, depending on how SWMBO's new job
hunting goes.

The environment agency does have maps with flooding risks, but the
current ones take no account of flood defences etc., so of course the
fens are all coloured blue as a flood risk, not very helpful.

Actually, I think you will find that the fens are all coloured blue
because they really do have a =1% risk of flooding in any given year
(the EA's criteria). The big problem with the maps is that they don't
tell you how far above the 1% any given area is.

1% is an average of once per century, although I've heard somewhere
recently that we could start getting the once a century floods about
once every 20 years due to global warming, etc., etc.

I think the last time there was really serious widespread flooding with
multiple rivers bursting their banks in multiple places was 1947 - try
looking that up for an idea of what can happen. The floods in recent
years have generally been restricted to a few known trouble spots.

There are plenty of places between Cambridge and Huntingdon which don't
appear in blue on the EA's map, perhaps you should start looking there.
Alternatively, try asking again here once you have narrowed your area
down a bit more, "the fens" covers quite a big area..

Martin.