Cheltenham Flood Risk
Cheltenham has a Low flood risk from rivers and the sea , with 1% of homes in a Medium or High band. The nearest gauge is 1.1 km away.
Cheltenham has 115,290 residents and 56,026 homes. Ranked 1888 of 7,114 in England for rivers and sea flood risk.
What Is The River Level Near Cheltenham Right Now?
Read from the Environment Agency flood-monitoring feed at 20 Sept, 14:34 UTC. The highest level on record here is 1.521 m , reached on 23 December 2020.
When Has Cheltenham Flooded Before?
The Environment Agency holds 41 recorded flood outlines covering Cheltenham, the most recent dated 21 July 2007.
Absence of a record is not evidence that a place has never flooded — the Environment Agency states that a lack of coverage does not mean an area has never flooded.
What Does Cheltenham's Flood Risk Classification Mean?
2.4% of postcodes in Cheltenham sit in Flood Zone 3, the planning band for land with a 1% or greater annual chance of river flooding or 0.5% or greater of sea flooding — and the map that draws it deliberately ignores flood defences.
The flood risk band for rivers and the sea is Low , with 1% of homes in a Medium or High band. Unlike the Flood Zone, the band counts the defences that are actually in place, which is why the two can describe the same street differently and both be right.
Which Postcode Districts Cover Cheltenham?
Each district below is one postcode district that falls inside Cheltenham. The band is the one shared by most of that district's postcodes, so it describes the district rather than a single street — enter a full postcode in the checker for one address. A district can cover more than one town, and the district pages linked from the checker are keyed to the town that holds most of its postcodes.
| Postcode district | Postcodes here | Rivers and sea band | Surface water addresses |
|---|---|---|---|
| GL51 | 1,370 | High | 5,222 |
| GL50 | 765 | High | 3,100 |
| GL52 | 716 | Low | 2,603 |
| GL53 | 670 | High | 1,716 |
| GL54 | 1 | Not mapped — no rivers-and-sea band covers this district | not published for this district |
"Not mapped" is not "no risk". It means no rivers-and-sea band covers that district in the source — surface water can still flood it, and both Camden and Islington flooded from surface water in July 2021 while carrying no mapped rivers-and-sea band.