Rivers are a minor flood risk in Cinderford, and the bigger concern is water running off the streets. Hardly any postcodes fall in the river-and-sea flood zones. About one in ten score high on at least one wider flood measure. The coast is a few kilometres away and plans to keep it defended. The risk here is patchy, so it's worth checking the exact street rather than worrying about the whole town.
The Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood zones put about 1% of Cinderford's postcodes in zone 3, the highest-probability band, and about 2% in zone 2, the medium-probability band outside it. Those bands don't overlap, so between them they cover very little of the town. The town takes its name from a ford, a crossing point recorded as early as 1258, and the water it crossed takes in very few of today's homes.
Surface water is a different matter, and those zones ignore it entirely. Rain that pools in a dip or runs down a road never reaches a river, so a house can be outside every river-and-sea zone and still get water at the door after a downpour. That's the risk the zone map leaves out, and for most of Cinderford it's the one that counts.
With the Environment Agency's allowance for climate change, the share of postcodes inside the flood zones rises to about 4%. It's still a small share, though it shows which way the modelled edge of the zones is moving.
For insurance, most Cinderford homes should find flood cover an ordinary part of the policy. The exceptions are the streets near the modelled channels and the low spots where surface water gathers, where insurers may ask more questions and charge more. Put the exact address into the Environment Agency's long-term flood risk checker and get an insurance quote while the sale is still at the offer stage.
Combining several flood measures, surface water included, about 10% of the area's postcodes rate high on at least one of them, about 14% rate medium on at least one and about 38% rate low on at least one. A postcode only has to trip one measure to be counted, which is why these shares are larger than the zone figures. The difference is mostly rain on roads and gardens.
The Environment Agency's rivers-and-sea mapping counts 372 properties across the 19 Cinderford postcodes it lists as carrying some risk. Of those, 37 are at high risk, 31 at medium and 20 at low. Only postcodes with some risk appear in that list, so the rest of the town isn't counted at all.
The high-risk river-and-sea extent covers about 1% of postcodes whether or not the model includes defences. In other words, any defences make no measurable difference to that extent here. "Defended" in this sense only means a defence appears in the model, and in Cinderford it makes no difference to the result.
Every postcode in the area is covered by a shoreline management plan, and the policy is to hold the line for the next 20, 50 and 100 years. The nearest coast is at least 3 kilometres away and about 4 kilometres from the typical postcode. Holding the line is what the plan intends, and it still needs funding that nobody has committed. The policy also says nothing about what defences exist on the shore today.
The nearest tide gauge the Environment Agency can offer is at Liverpool's Georges and Princes Piers, which measured sea level rising about 1.4 millimetres a year between 1858 and 1983. That's a record from the other end of the country that stopped before most current owners bought their homes, so it can't tell you much about Cinderford.
Flood risk in Cinderford is middling: rivers and the sea are a minor threat to most homes, and the one in ten postcodes flagged on wider measures mean every purchase needs checking street by street.