Felpham has real flood risk in parts of the village. About one postcode in six sits in the current high-risk river-and-sea zone. Roughly one postcode in twelve carries some high surface-water risk. More than nine in ten postcodes fall inside the climate-adjusted future zone. Read this section carefully before you buy.
On river and sea flooding, about one in six of the village's postcodes (roughly 17%) sits inside Environment Agency Flood Zone 3, which is the current highest-probability band for tidal or river flooding. A smaller layer, about one postcode in twenty, sits inside Flood Zone 2, the next-most-affected band. The reason is geography. The village lies flat on the south coast, with just under half of postcodes within five hundred metres of the sea, and the minimum distance from a postcode to the coastline at under twenty metres. There is no inland buffer of meaningful size between most of Felpham and the water.
On surface-water flooding, the picture spreads more widely. About one postcode in twelve carries some high surface-water risk. Roughly one in six carries some medium-level risk. About four in ten carries some low-level risk. Surface-water flooding is the kind that catches a property in a heavy summer downpour on flat coastal land where the drainage is finite, and does not require a sea breach or a river overtopping to cause damage.
On the climate-adjusted footprint, the picture broadens further. More than nine in ten of the village (about 92% of postcodes) falls inside the future flood zone modelled with climate-change sea-level allowances. That is the Environment Agency's planning-grade view of the next several decades, not a forecast for tomorrow. The shoreline-management plan for this stretch of coast sets the policy at "hold the line" for the next twenty, fifty and hundred years, which is the engineering commitment to defend, not a guarantee that the defences will be funded on time. The nearest tide gauge, at Portsmouth, has measured a sea-level trend of about two millimetres a year across sixty years of record. None of that is alarmist, but none of it is going away.
For insurance, the practical translation is that buildings cover is available but rarely cheap on the higher-risk addresses, and the cover that exists may sit on top of the Flood Re reinsurance scheme. Flood Re does not cover homes built since 2009, so a flat in a new seafront development is excluded from the scheme and priced on the open market. Lenders increasingly want a flood-search result before they will release the mortgage offer on coastal stock. The reasonable buyer checks the postcode and the address on the Environment Agency flood map before exchanging, and on the insurer's renewal quote before assuming the seller's premium will roll over.
Flood risk in Felpham is the page's weakest dimension and the one most worth checking yourself at the address level. Coastal village, flat land, real numbers, sea defences that need ongoing maintenance. None of it is hidden, all of it is in the maps.