The government wants to weaken flood plain protections. Tessa Munt is fighting back — and I’m with her.

Tessa Munt MP, as Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Flooding and Flooded Communities, went directly to Parliament to request dedicated debating time on the National Planning Policy Framework changes. She made the case to the relevant committee that the proposed changes are dangerous — warning that they would allow developers to bypass the sequential test on surface water flooding, and citing the Association of British Insurers, who strongly object to the proposals. She has requested a Thursday debate slot and is ready to lead that discussion on behalf of all of us.

This is an urgent debate that needs to be had. The government’s housebuilding targets are ambitious — and yes, we do need more homes, including genuinely affordable ones. But these changes are removing the very protections that keep people safe, delegating decisions away from local communities who know their land, their flood plains, and their risks.

The High Court ruling allowing 190 homes on Flood Zone 3a land in Yatton is a warning to all of Somerset. I represent communities that have flooded multiple times in the last few years alone — including this week. I have seen the devastation first hand. The distress, the damage, the exhaustion of people who just want to feel safe in their own homes. This isn’t abstract policy — it is people’s lives.

This matters across the whole of Somerset, not just North Somerset. These precedents travel. These rules apply to us all.

As Tessa rightly warns, homes built in flood zones risk becoming uninsurable and unmortgageable — and when Flood Re ends, families will be left stranded.

Somerset communities cannot be the casualties of a housebuilding target. We need homes — but not in places we know will flood.