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Besthorpe and Attleborough: the 110-home plan and the 2023 floods
Ashberry Strategic Land is preparing an application for up to 110 homes at Besthorpe, beside streets that flooded in Storm Babet in 2023. Breckland's register showed no application yet.
Ashberry Strategic Land is preparing an outline planning application for up to 110 homes on a field south of Bickley Close in Besthorpe, the village on the eastern edge of Attleborough. The field is close to streets that flooded in Storm Babet in October 2023, and that flooding is the main argument against it. Breckland District Council’s planning register showed no application for the site when we checked on 24 September 2026, so nothing has been decided.
Affordable share 25% · Distance to Attleborough town centre 1.5 km · Fastest train to Norwich 20 min · Properties flooded inside, October 2023 (county report) 60 · Breckland five-year housing land supply, as quoted by the developer 2.82 years
What is being proposed
Ashberry Strategic Land is a land promoter owned by the housebuilder Bellway. It plans to ask Breckland District Council for outline permission, with every matter except access left for later, for up to 110 homes on farmland between Bickley Close and Silver Street at the eastern edge of Besthorpe. A quarter of the homes, 25%, would be affordable. Access would be from Bickley Close, and the illustrative plan has landscaping along the Bickley Close boundary, an attenuation basin for surface water and a play area.
The site is about 1.5 kilometres east of Attleborough town centre, and the developer puts Attleborough station, on the Norwich to Cambridge line, at around a 25-minute walk or a 7-minute cycle. The field is not allocated for housing in Breckland’s Local Plan, according to the developer’s own material; the town’s planned growth is the Sustainable Urban Extension of about 4,000 homes to the south-east.
The developer’s public consultation has closed. Ashberry says a Statement of Community Engagement summarising the feedback will go in with the application, after which Breckland will run its own consultation before any decision. Ashberry’s consultation material says the site is in Flood Zone 1, the lowest flood-risk category, and that sustainable drainage would keep runoff from the site no higher than it is from the field today.
The objections came before the application. George Freeman, the Conservative MP for Mid Norfolk, wrote to the council in a letter co-signed by local councillors calling the site “fundamentally unsuitable for development on this scale”. Tony Watling, chairman of Besthorpe Parish Council, told the BBC that the field becomes saturated in heavy rain and that if it is built on, “that water has to go somewhere”.
The 2023 flooding
Heavy rain from Storm Babet fell on 19 and 20 October 2023, and on the afternoon of 20 October the Besthorpe Stream, a headwater of the River Thet, burst its banks. The flooding was mostly around Mill Lane and the nearby streets that drain to the stream. Norfolk County Council, as Lead Local Flood Authority, investigated and published Investigation Report into Flooding in East Attleborough and Besthorpe in Storm Babet, October 2023 (reference FIR076 Part 1), which is on the council’s flood investigations page.
Reports of the scale differ. The BBC, citing the investigation, said about 130 homes were flooded. The report itself counts 60 properties flooded internally in the Besthorpe Stream catchment, plus seven reports of flooded outbuildings, sheds and garages.
One cause the report identified was linked to construction. An unconsented structure in the stream on land north of Norwich Road, understood to have been installed to help construction of the new housing there, restricted the flow of flood water and contributed to the flooding of properties in that part of the catchment. The BBC described it as a temporary road built over the Besthorpe Stream during work on The Gables, a 165-home development on Norwich Road by The Hill Group, which the BBC said it had approached for comment. In the BBC’s account, the backed-up stream combined with silted, debris-filled culverts and high water downstream to flood Mill Lane and nearby streets. The report records that the landowner removed the structure in November 2024 after enforcement by the drainage board.
The Norwich Road land had itself been refused by Breckland and allowed on appeal by the Planning Inspectorate in January 2016. The report notes that land there has historically flooded in wet winters, and the BBC reported that residents objected on those grounds before the appeal.
That is why the Bickley Close proposal has met the reception it has. Objectors are pointing to a documented case in which a recent housing development on the same stream network was found by the flood authority to have contributed to homes flooding, and Mill Lane, one of the streets that flooded, is next to the proposed site. One of the report’s recommendations bears directly on new schemes: that councils require developers to submit a Construction Water Management Plan setting out the temporary measures that will control flood risk while building is under way.
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The stalled works upstream
After Storm Babet, plans were drawn up for natural flood management in the upper catchment of the River Thet, north of Attleborough, to slow water in the fields before it reaches the town’s culverts. The BBC reported on 13 August 2026 that the scheme had stalled: more money was needed to compensate a landowner so the works would be effective long term.
Until that scheme is funded, a buyer in the streets that flooded should assume the drainage behaves broadly as it did in October 2023. The one change on the ground that the county council’s report records is the removal of the Norwich Road structure.
Breckland’s housing land supply
Breckland is in a weak position to refuse housing sites. The developer’s consultation material quotes the council’s December 2025 housing land supply assessment: about 2.82 years of deliverable supply, or around 2,720 homes, against a requirement of 920 homes a year. National planning policy expects councils to show a rolling five-year supply. When they cannot, the presumption in favour of sustainable development weighs more heavily, and refusals become harder to defend at appeal.
Flood risk is not set aside. The National Planning Policy Framework treats it as a distinct constraint, and a scheme next to a catchment with a recent, documented flooding history will get close scrutiny from the Environment Agency and the Lead Local Flood Authority. But with the supply at 2.82 years, the weight in Breckland in 2026 is towards finding sites.
Checks before you buy in Attleborough or Besthorpe
None of this rules out the town. Attleborough has direct trains to Norwich (fastest 20 minutes) and Cambridge (fastest 57 minutes), and its median sale price was £255,000 in the year to June 2026, against £275,750 in Wymondham. The flood question can be answered street by street, so answer it before you offer:
- Run the Environment Agency’s long-term flood risk check for the exact postcode. It shows risk from rivers and the sea, surface water and reservoirs separately. Streets around Mill Lane, Norwich Road and the Besthorpe Stream corridor are the ones to be careful with.
- Ask the seller in writing whether the property flooded in October 2023 or at any time since. The flooding question is part of the standard TA6 Property Information Form.
- Read Norfolk County Council’s FIR076 Part 1 report. It is public, and its maps show which streets flooded.
- Get a buildings insurance quote before exchange, not after. Flood Re, the scheme that keeps flood cover affordable, only covers homes built before 1 January 2009, so a newer house depends on what insurers will offer on the open market, and premiums vary by street.
- For the county-wide picture, see our Norfolk flood risk guide for buyers.
If you are already at offer stage near Bickley Close, read the flood and drainage consultee responses once the application is lodged and published. They will say whether the consultees think the surface water strategy is adequate for the downstream network, which is the network that flooded in 2023.
Common questions
Has planning permission been granted for the 110 homes at Besthorpe?
No. Breckland’s planning register showed no application for the site on 24 September 2026. Ashberry Strategic Land has finished its public consultation and says an outline application will follow, and the local MP and councillors have already written to the council objecting.
Is Attleborough itself a flood-risk area to move to?
Parts of it are. The 2023 flooding was concentrated in streets along the Besthorpe Stream, mostly around Mill Lane, and Norfolk County Council’s FIR076 Part 1 report names them. Much of the town was not affected, so check the individual street.
Who is Ashberry Strategic Land and are they the same company as The Hill Group?
No. Ashberry Strategic Land is a land promoter owned by the housebuilder Bellway. The Hill Group, which the BBC named as the firm behind The Gables on Norwich Road, is a separate company; what the two sites share is the Besthorpe Stream catchment.
What is Breckland’s five-year housing land supply and why does it matter?
About 2.82 years against a requirement of 920 homes a year, according to the council’s December 2025 assessment as quoted by the developer. National policy expects five, and below that it becomes harder for a council to defend refusals at appeal.
Has flood prevention upstream of Attleborough been completed?
No. The natural flood management scheme in the upper River Thet catchment, north of Attleborough, stalled because more money is needed to compensate a landowner. Drainage conditions are broadly what they were in October 2023, apart from the removal of the construction structure at Norwich Road in November 2024.
Sources
- Ashberry Strategic Land, Besthorpe consultation site: proposals, FAQs and housing land supply figures, ashberrybesthorpeconsultation.co.uk (checked 24 September 2026).
- Norfolk County Council, flood investigations page and FIR076 Part 1: Attleborough and Besthorpe, Storm Babet, Oct 2023, norfolk.gov.uk/article/38645/Flood-investigations.
- BBC News, “Critics say new homes unsuitable for flood-hit town”, 13 August 2026.
- Breckland District Council, online planning register (searched 24 September 2026), breckland.gov.uk.
- Environment Agency, long-term flood risk service, gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk.
- Flood Re, eligibility criteria, floodre.co.uk.
- HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, 12 months to June 2026.
By Tom Fletcher. Checked against Breckland’s planning register, the county council’s report and the developer’s consultation site on 24 September 2026. We will update this piece when Ashberry submits an application, when the consultee responses are published, and if funding for the upstream flood works is confirmed. If you live in Attleborough or Besthorpe and want to tell us what your street was like in 2023, write to info@norfolklivingguide.co.uk.
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