Yes, and it's the most serious thing to check before buying here. Half the postcodes sit in the highest river-and-sea flood zone. Two in three do once climate change is allowed for. Almost every postcode is within a short walk of mapped tidal water. This isn't a small risk confined to one low corner of the village. It's part of the place.
On the Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood mapping, 50% of Aylesford's postcodes fall in flood zone 3, the highest-probability zone. Another 8% fall in flood zone 2, the medium-probability band beyond zone 3. The two zones don't overlap. Zone 2 is the smaller figure because it covers only the fringe outside the higher-risk area, not because the risk is shrinking. Surface-water figures, where they appear elsewhere on this site, come from a different indicator and shouldn't be read alongside these.
No separate surface-water share is published for Aylesford, so no surface-water percentage is given here. What there is: about 38% of postcodes fall inside recorded historic flood outlines, and the Environment Agency lists 21 recorded flood events. The most recent in that record dates from 1965, came from the sea, and happened when the channel's capacity was exceeded with no raised defences in place. A long gap since the last recorded event is not the same as a reduced risk.
Looking ahead, the Environment Agency's climate-adjusted mapping puts about 67% of postcodes in the flood zone. That's the planning allowance for a wetter future, and it takes in more of the village than today's map does.
A home in a mapped flood zone will usually cost more to insure, and some policies will exclude flood cover or come with larger excesses. Get an insurance quote for the exact address before you commit to a purchase, not after the survey. The difference between two houses a street apart can be larger than the difference in their asking prices.
Taking every measure together, including surface water, about 39% of postcodes rate high on at least one flood measure, 48% rate medium on at least one, and 39% rate low on at least one. These bands overlap with each other and with the zone figures above, because a single postcode can carry different risk levels from different sources. They shouldn't be added together or read as the same thing as the flood zones.
Counting homes rather than postcodes gives a clearer picture. The Environment Agency's rivers-and-sea mapping lists 341 properties in the 16 postcodes that carry some risk: 78 at high risk, 110 at medium risk and 111 at low risk. Of those at high risk, 66 are homes. Postcodes carrying no river or sea risk aren't listed, so these counts cover only the at-risk part of the area.
Defences are the question most buyers forget to ask. About 50% of postcodes fall inside the high-risk flood extent when the modelling ignores defences, and about 33% still fall inside it with defences included. So the defences in the model reduce the mapped extent without removing it. A defence being present in the model doesn't mean a particular house is safe, and it isn't a reason to skip a flood search.
The water is close. About 92% of postcodes are within 500 metres of the coastline as the shoreline mapping defines it, the nearest is about 17 metres away, and the median distance is about 200 metres. The 500-metre line is a threshold set by the data, not a verdict on any single address.
The shoreline management plan for this stretch sets a policy of holding the line for the next 20 years, then moving to managed realignment for the 50-year and 100-year horizons. Holding the line is a stated intention to maintain the current defences, not a guarantee they'll be funded or will hold. Managed realignment means deliberately letting the shoreline move in places, which is the policy a buyer planning to stay a long time should read carefully.
The nearest tide gauge, at Dover, recorded sea level rising by about 2.2 millimetres a year across its record from 1961 to 2010. That's a measured historic rate, not a forecast.
Flood risk is Aylesford's weak point, and a serious one. Read the flood search for any house here as closely as the survey, because on these figures the risk is part of what you're buying.