For most of the town, not much, but the risk is concentrated rather than absent. Only a small slice sits in the river-and-sea flood zones. Around one postcode in seven carries a high rating on at least one flood measure. Several hundred properties sit at high risk from rivers and the sea. The average address is fine; the exposed ones are the ones to check.
On the Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood zones, about 2% of the town's postcodes fall in flood zone 3, the highest-probability band. Less than 1% sit in flood zone 2, which is the separate medium-probability fringe beyond zone 3, so the smaller figure there is correct rather than a mistake. By this measure, rivers and the sea touch a thin edge of Bexhill, not the town as a whole.
Surface water, the flooding that comes from heavy rain overwhelming drains rather than from a river or the sea, has no standalone figure for the town. It is folded into the postcode-level ratings further down, and it is the most likely reason those ratings run higher than the flood-zone shares.
Looking ahead, the Environment Agency's climate-adjusted flood zone takes in about 5% of postcodes. That is the modelled extent with an allowance for a wetter future, and it roughly doubles the footprint of today's highest-risk zone. Buyers planning to stay twenty years should read that figure, not only the current one.
For insurance, the question is the individual address rather than the town. Most homes should see flood risk play little part in the premium, while a property inside one of the exposed pockets may find cover costs more or comes with conditions. Get a quote on the specific address before committing, not after exchange.
Counting every type of flooding together, about 14% of postcodes rate high on at least one flood measure, about 13% medium and about 24% low. These bands include surface water and overlap with the flood-zone shares above, so they cannot be added to them or read as the same thing. They answer a wider question: whether water from any source is modelled as a problem near the postcode.
The count of homes is more useful than the share of postcodes. The Environment Agency's rivers-and-sea mapping lists 72 postcodes carrying some risk, covering 1,985 properties. Of those, 617 properties are at high risk, 551 of them residential, with 10 at medium risk, 82 at low risk and 101 at very low risk. Postcodes with no river or sea risk do not appear at all, which is why the list is short.
Defences change less than a buyer might hope. About 3% of postcodes fall inside the high-risk flood extent when defences are left out of the model, and about 2% when defences are included. A defence being present in the model is not the same as a house being safe, and on these figures accounting for defences barely moves the share.
The sea is close for a good part of the town. About 30% of postcodes sit within 500 metres of the coast, the nearest just 4 metres from it, and the typical postcode is about 870 metres away. The 500-metre line is a threshold in the data, not a verdict on any single street.
The shoreline management plan for this stretch is to hold the line at the 20-year, 50-year and 100-year horizons. That is a stated intention to keep defending the current coastline, not a guarantee of funding and not a new wall already built. It is the most favourable policy a coastal town can have, and it is still a policy.
At Dover, the nearest tide gauge, sea level rose by about 2 millimetres a year over its record from 1961 to 2010. That is a measured historic rate, not a forecast, and it is the backdrop every coastal defence is working against.
There is no recorded historic flooding in the area. That is reassuring, and it is also only what has been recorded; it does not prove water has never come in.
Bexhill-on-Sea's flood risk is middling: low for most of the town, serious for a few hundred properties near the coast and in low spots. Check the exact address, because the average says nothing about the house you are buying.