Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of land lost through adverse possession on local flood resilience.

The new National Flood Risk Assessment data published on 28 January 2025 uses the best currently available data to provide a single picture of current and future flood risk from rivers, the sea and surface water for England. The Environment Agency has not undertaken an assessment of the impact of land lost through adverse possession on flood resilience – this would need to be undertaken at a local level by the asset owners or interested parties.

HM Land Registry has operational responsibility for considering land registration applications based on adverse possession and publishes guidance about this at GOV.UK here and here.