Ashmere is redrawing its flood maps. Four thousand homes find out in March.

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The borough has spent two years remodelling how water moves through the lower town, and the result is a map that looks noticeably different from the one drawn in 2011.

Most of the change is on the eastern side, where a culvert under the old goods yard was found to be carrying less than half the volume the previous model assumed. Streets that sit behind it move into the highest category.

Officers stress that a category change is not a prediction. It alters what insurers see, what builders must do, and whether a household gets a warning at two in the morning.

Residents in the affected streets will be written to individually in March. The council has committed to a drop-in session in each of the four wards before then, though dates have not been published.

The consultation documents run to 180 pages. The maps themselves are in Annexe C, which is the part most people will want.