🧃A Hard Rain’s Gonna Wreck It

Welcome to The Strawman, the daily climate newsletter that’s not waterproof but is highly absorbent when it comes to climate chaos. Today's downpour of doom: rain. Just regular old rain. The kind that shows up uninvited, overstays its welcome, and leaves your carpet floating like a raft on the Mississippi.

Rain, Rain, Go Away (or at least drain properly)

Flash floods used to be rare flukes. Now they’re RSVP-ing to dinner parties in Oxfordshire. New modelling from the Environment Agency shows a 43% jump in homes at risk from surface water flooding—caused when rain falls faster than the ground can suck it up. That’s 4.6 million properties in England, up from 3.2 million a year ago. Unlike rivers or oceans, these floods don't announce themselves with ominous storm surges. They just pop up from below, seep through your vinyl, and turn your kitchen into a koi pond.

Most people assume flood risk means living near rivers or coastlines. But surface water is the sneak thief of the flood world—culprits include your neighbour’s tennis court, clogged street drains, or that shiny new development that used to be a field.

The Real Flood Risk Isn’t the River—It’s Your Driveway

The government’s £250mn flood defence fund is largely going to rivers and coastal protection. But surface water floods, despite being twice as common, get a sliver of attention. Why? Possibly because they don’t make for good photo ops—no heroic sandbags, no overflowing Thames, just soggy basements in Notting Hill and drenched dogs in Oxfordshire.

Meanwhile, insurers have already done the maths and are heading for higher ground. They’ve ramped up reliance on Flood Re (the UK’s flood reinsurer of last resort), pulled back from newer builds not covered by the scheme, and are now ghosting entire postcodes. Fancy London homes with a history of puddles are increasingly uninsurable, which is now killing house sales faster than rising interest rates.

Why Your Insurance Is Running for Higher Ground

Insurers are skittish for a reason. Climate models are already outpaced by reality—more intense storms, more frequent deluges, and far less warning. A house in Wimbledon that once had insurers queuing up now can't get a quote to save its life (or its parquet flooring).

Campaigners are trying to sound the alarm. They’re pushing for practical changes: permeable driveways, raised sockets, waterproof skirting boards, and self-sealing airbricks. Sexy? Not really. Effective? Surprisingly so. But the cultural shift isn’t keeping up—many homeowners are still relying on the Environment Agency’s 1-in-1,000-year flood maps like they’re horoscopes.

But if you're flooding twice in 12 months like the unlucky Pryors in Oxfordshire, it’s no longer “bad luck.” It's climate roulette, and the house always wins.

The takeaway
Surface water flooding is the quiet crisis that’s soaking Britain. The rain’s not new—but the risk map sure is.