A new flood-information service launched with a film by Wallace and Gromit studio Aardman is giving East Sussex residents another way to check warnings and prepare for flooding.
BeFloodWarned brings Environment Agency alerts and Met Office warnings together with rainfall information. The pilot accepts postcodes across England, with enhanced local data for Eastbourne.
The launch film, Missy and Stanley’s Tale, was directed by Åsa Lucander. East Sussex County Council’s 13 October announcement says the platform was developed through its Blue Heart project, which focuses on flood resilience in Eastbourne and southern Wealden.
Watch Missy and Stanley’s Tale
The animation is a way into a practical local story: understanding a warning before water reaches a property. Watch Missy and Stanley’s Tale on the project’s own website. It is an Aardman production, not an episode featuring Wallace and Gromit.
Residents can use the film alongside the postcode service. The important next step is to check the information for the address concerned rather than assume an alert for a wider area describes conditions at a particular front door.
What does the service offer?
The BeFloodWarned website lets users search by postcode and includes national warnings, rainfall forecasts from its local system and local rainfall data. It describes itself as a pilot and is marked as a beta service, with feedback invited while it is tested.
Bringing information together could make it easier to see the different sources relevant to an address. The local detail is particularly useful to the Eastbourne area, but users elsewhere should not assume the same enhanced coverage is available for their postcode.
The council says both the platform and film received Defra funding through the Flood and Coastal Innovation Programmes, managed by the Environment Agency. The £200 million figure attached to those programmes is their wider funding pot, not the cost of this website or animation.
What an Eastbourne postcode search shows
We tested the public postcode BN21 4UG, for Eastbourne Town Hall, on 26 October. Entering it in the homepage search opened a postcode dashboard with separate Environment Agency flood alerts, Met Office weather warnings and local rainfall information.
Below the alert summaries, the rainfall chart separates observations, current estimates (nowcasts) and forecasts in hourly blocks across 48 hours. The page provides information buttons explaining the layers. Use your own postcode and read the latest result; the dashboard’s condition at the time of our test is not a forecast for a later visit. The service also says its rainfall alerts are not an emergency service and should not be the sole source of flood-risk information.
Using the information to prepare
Start with the postcode search on BeFloodWarned, then read the description and validity period of any warning shown. Weather warnings describe potential impacts across an area; river or sea alerts refer to different hazards. Rainfall information is another layer, rather than a guarantee of what will happen at an individual property.
The government’s flood-preparation guidance explains how to make a plan, keep important contact details together and prepare a flood kit. A useful household plan identifies who may need help, where essential documents and medicines are kept, and how people would leave safely if advised to do so. Preparing before a warning arrives avoids trying to make those decisions during disruption.
Can I receive warnings directly?
The Environment Agency also runs a separate free warning service by telephone, text or email for eligible addresses in England. Coverage can include rivers, the sea or groundwater, depending on the location.
The government explicitly says that service does not provide warnings for surface-water flooding, sometimes called flash flooding. Being outside a warning area, or receiving no message, should therefore not be read as confirmation that every type of flooding is impossible.
Floodline, on 0345 988 1188, can help people register for or update Environment Agency warnings. For the latest conditions, use the live information rather than relying on the date of a news report.
