Block Management in Chard

Chard's real flood problem is invisible on the river map. Only 0.2 per cent of the built-up area is in Flood Zone 3 and 0.2 per cent in Flood Zone 2, and no Environment Agency flood warning or alert area covers the town. The South Somerset upper reaches alert comes within about 30 metres of the edge without overlapping it, and the nearest warning area begins a kilometre away at Chard Reservoir. The risk is surface water. The strategic flood risk assessment names Chard among the South Somerset settlements most at risk of surface water flooding. It notes that the sewer network serving the town is combined and therefore has limited capacity. Three separate section 19 investigations have been published. At least 100 properties were affected on 28 June 2021, in what was assessed as a 1 in 300 year rainfall event with 95mm falling in two and a half hours. Four properties were affected in October 2021, and 83 properties were internally flooded on 26 January 2025 from 56.40mm in what was only a 2 year return period. The council's explanation is topographic. The town sits in a wide valley with hills on either side forming a bowl, and it straddles a watershed, with most drains running to the River Isle and some to the Axe. The 2021 report records that Silver Street flooding blocked the entrance to a block of flats whose doorway sits lower than the road. The council's consultants concluded in 2026 that a wider series of catchment based interventions will be needed, and that this is likely to be a very substantial investment requirement and a long term project. For a block, that means checking entrance levels and drainage, and giving insurers the real flood history rather than the flood zone alone.

Decided under the South Somerset Local Plan 2006 to 2028, whose cover records adoption in March 2015. Chard carries two of its own strategic policies. The Chard Strategic Growth Area policy provides for at least 2,716 dwellings, around 13 hectares of employment land, two new primary schools and four neighbourhood centres at Avishayes, Stop Line Slopes, Millfields and Holbear. The phasing policy delivers at least 1,220 of those dwellings within the plan period through the Chard Eastern Development Area. There is no neighbourhood plan, and Chard does not appear on the council's register even as one in production. There is no Article 4 direction either. The South Somerset conservation area directions are at Bruton, Castle Cary, Wincanton and two parts of Yeovil, with a further set covering Yeovil houses in multiple occupation, and Chard appears in none of them. Works to a block are judged against the Local Plan alone.