For most homes, no; for the homes by the water, yes. Hardly any postcodes sit in the river-and-sea flood zones. About one in seven flags high on at least one flood measure. No past flooding is on record. The risk is narrow, and it lives at the waterside end of the village rather than on the estates.
In the Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood zones, about 1% of Bursledon's postcodes fall in Flood Zone 3, the highest-probability band, and none fall in Flood Zone 2. The two zones are separate bands: Zone 2 is the medium-probability fringe beyond Zone 3, so a zero there simply means the mapped edge of the risk is sharp rather than gradual. By this measure, rivers and the sea reach very few postcodes.
Surface water, the rain that has nowhere to go, is not given its own share in the figures for this area. It is folded into the postcode-level indicator below, which is why that indicator runs well above the flood-zone numbers. The difference between the two is mostly rainfall, not tide.
Looking forward, the Environment Agency's climate-adjusted mapping puts about 3% of postcodes in the flood zone once projected change is allowed for. That is a modest widening of a small footprint, not a new risk arriving from nowhere.
For insurance, the gap between the headline and the address matters. A house on the higher estates is likely to be quoted as an ordinary risk. A property near the water, or on a postcode carrying a high surface-water reading, can face higher premiums or narrower cover, and a buyer who waits for the solicitor's search to find that out has left it late. Put the exact address into the Environment Agency's long-term flood-risk service and get an indicative buildings quote before committing to a survey.
At postcode level, counting a postcode if it reaches a band on at least one measure, surface water included, about 14% of Bursledon's postcodes rate high, about 8% medium and about 29% low. These bands overlap with the flood-zone shares above and measure something broader, so they should not be added to them. The high figure is the one to weigh: it is a postcode-wide flag, and it will catch some houses that have never seen standing water.
Counted as properties rather than postcodes, the Environment Agency's rivers-and-sea mapping lists 286 properties across the 10 postcodes that carry some risk. Of those, 51 are at high risk, including 27 homes; 2 are at medium risk, 6 at low and 9 at very low. Postcodes with no river or sea risk do not appear in that count at all, so it describes the exposed pocket, not the village.
On defences, about 1% of postcodes sit inside the high-risk extent with defences left out of the model, and about 1% with them included. The defended and undefended shares match. Whatever defences the model holds do not shrink the high-risk footprint here, and "defended" in these maps means a defence is present in the modelling, not that a particular house is safe.
The water is close for part of the village. About 14% of postcodes are within 500 metres of the coast, a threshold the mapping uses rather than a verdict on any single address. The nearest postcode sits about 5 metres from the shoreline, and the median is about 1,200 metres, which is the estates doing what estates do and staying well back.
The shoreline management plan's policy for this stretch is no active intervention over the 20-year, 50-year and 100-year horizons alike. That is a stated intention, and the intention is not to build or maintain defences here. It is not a promise of protection, and anyone buying at the water's edge should read it as the authorities telling them, in writing, that the shoreline is theirs to worry about.
At the nearest tide gauge, Portsmouth, sea level rose at about 2 millimetres a year across the record from 1962 to 2023. That is a measured historic rate, not a forecast.
No historic flooding is recorded in the area. That is reassuring, and it is also only a statement about what was written down.
Bursledon's flood risk is middling: negligible for most of the village, real and unprotected for the waterside minority. Buy the view, if you want it, with the address checked and the policy understood.