Suffolk

At a glance

Type

County council

ONS code

E10000029

Area

3,801 km²

Region

East of England

District councils

5

Fire and rescue

Suffolk

Police

Suffolk

Emergency planning partnership

Suffolk Local Resilience Forum

Largest built-up areas

Ipswich, Lowestoft, Bury St Edmunds and Felixstowe

Council emergency pages

• Council website suffolk.gov.uk
• Emergency planning suffolk.gov.uk (suffolk.gov.uk)
• Gritting and winter roads suffolk.gov.uk (suffolk.gov.uk)
• Current emergencies and severe weather suffolk.gov.uk (suffolk.gov.uk)

Councils announce rest centres, road closures and emergency help on these pages and their social media. Find your council by postcode (GOV.UK).

Power cuts

Report a power cut or check one: call 105 free from any phone, or use the operator’s website.

Network operator (not your supplier):

• UK Power Networks (East England)

Ofgem’s figures for the whole licence area, April 2024 to March 2025, counting cuts of 3 minutes or longer:

• East England (UK Power Networks): 44.6 interruptions per 100 customers and 32.5 minutes without power per customer (2023/24: 46.2 and 35.6)

Great Britain as a whole: 39.7 and 35.1. These are area averages, not figures for Suffolk alone. About this dataset

Flooding

Environment Agency: 22 flood alert areas and 53 flood warning areas overlap Suffolk. Waters named: River Stour, North Sea, River Orwell, Stour, Stour Brook, River Deben.

Warning areas include: Bawdsey Quay and Felixstowe Ferry; Isolated low lying properties along the tidal River Waveney; Isolated riverside properties on the tidal River Deben estuary; Kessingland Beach to Potters Bridge and Easton Broad; Little Ouse River and River Thet at Thetford, Brandon and Hockwold; Lowestoft seafront and docks; Minsmere Marshes on the Suffolk coast; Oulton Broad near Mutford Lock; and 45 more.

Check for flooding now · Sign up for free flood warnings (GOV.UK). Floodline: 0345 988 1188.

Weather warnings

The Met Office issues yellow, amber and red warnings for rain, wind, snow, ice, fog, thunderstorms and extreme heat. Current Met Office warnings (choose East of England on the map) · What the colours mean

Health: NHS help and the nearest A&E

For urgent medical help that is not life-threatening, use NHS 111 online or call 111. Find urgent and emergency care services · Find NHS services near you (NHS website)

The nearest type 1 (major) A&E departments to the centre of each of the largest built-up areas, by straight-line distance (as the crow flies, not by road):

• Ipswich: Ipswich Hospital (3.5 km); Colchester Hospital (23.5 km); West Suffolk Hospital (35.6 km).
• Lowestoft: James Paget University Hospital (9.9 km); Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (37.5 km).
• Bury St Edmunds: West Suffolk Hospital (1.7 km); Ipswich Hospital (39.4 km).

We have not found an open official list of urgent treatment centres and minor injury units for England, so they are not shown here.

About this dataset

Never Caught Out is not affiliated with the NHS.

Water supply

More than one company supplies parts of Suffolk:

• Anglian Water (about 68% of the area) · Check on or report an issue
• Essex and Suffolk Water (about 32% of the area) · No water

To report no water, low pressure or a burst main, use the company’s page above. Your water bill names your supplier.

Water resource zones covering Suffolk: Suffolk East (Anglian Water, about 31% of the area); Suffolk West & Cambs (Anglian Water, about 27% of the area); Blyth (Essex and Suffolk Water, about 12% of the area); Northern Central (Essex and Suffolk Water, about 10% of the area); Hartismere (Essex and Suffolk Water, about 10% of the area); Suffolk Ixworth (Anglian Water, about 7% of the area); Suffolk Sudbury (Anglian Water, about 2% of the area); Suffolk Thetford (Anglian Water, about 1% of the area). What a water resource zone is

What to do when the water goes off

Local risks and emergency planning

• Coast: about 470 km of the council boundary is shoreline at mean high water, by our measurement (this includes tidal estuaries). Coastal flooding and storm surges are possible; the flood areas above include any coastal ones.
• Flooding: 53 flood warning areas and 22 flood alert areas overlap the council area (details above).
• Suffolk Local Resilience Forum publishes a community risk register: the official list of emergencies that planners prepare for here. The register document.
• Hazards the register names include (our grouping of its wording): Storms and severe weather; Terrorism; Heatwaves; Snow and low temperatures; Transport accidents; Wildfires; Flooding; Drought; Pandemic; Outbreaks of infectious disease; Power cuts; Loss of water supply; Fuel shortages; Cyber attacks; Industrial and chemical accidents; Poor air quality; Public disorder; Space weather; Volcanic eruption. Open the register for how likely and how serious each one is judged to be.

We list only what official sources say. We do not rate how safe or risky anywhere is.

Map

Phone and broadband coverage

Ofcom’s predictions of normal coverage in Suffolk, January 2026. They are not live outages and not a guarantee for any address.

• Homes and businesses with 4G indoors from all four networks: 80%; from none: 0.9%.
• Outside homes and businesses, 4G from all four networks: 98%; from none: 0%.
• Land area with outdoor 4G from all four networks: 93%; from none: less than 0.1%.
• Premises that can get gigabit-capable broadband: 82%.
• Premises that cannot get decent broadband (10 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up) from a fixed line or fixed wireless: 573 (0.1%).

Check an address on Ofcom’s coverage checker · Phones when the network is down: how to reach 999 · About this dataset

Local radio

BBC Radio Suffolk

This is the BBC station for the county or area, from the BBC Sounds station list. Coverage overlaps council boundaries, so tune to whichever station you receive.

Census 2021: planning prompts

• Households with no car or van: 15.9%
• Residents aged 65 or over: 23.6%
• Households of one person aged 66 or over: 14.8%

Who would fetch food or medicines for you or a neighbour on icy or flooded roads, and who would you check on in a power cut? Ask your pharmacist about repeat prescriptions before bad weather.

Largest built-up areas

• Ipswich
  • The tidal River Orwell estuary from Felixstowe to the Ipswich Tidal Barrier
  • The tidal River Orwell at Cliff Quay industrial area in Ipswich
  • The west bank of the tidal River Orwell along Wherstead Road, Ipswich
• Lowestoft
  • The Lowestoft Riverside Business Park and Kirkley
  • Lowestoft seafront and docks
• Bury St Edmunds
  • River Lark at Sicklesmere and Bury St Edmunds
• Felixstowe
  • The Suffolk coast at Felixstowe, from the Pier to the Port
  • Bawdsey Quay and Felixstowe Ferry
  • The tidal River Orwell estuary from Felixstowe to the Ipswich Tidal Barrier

Other built-up areas include Haverhill, Sudbury, Mildenhall (West Suffolk), Stowmarket, Newmarket and Little Eriswell.

District councils in Suffolk

Suffolk County Council runs county services such as roads, gritting and social care. These district councils run local services such as bin collections and housing, and have their own emergency pages:

• Babergh
• Ipswich
• Mid Suffolk
• East Suffolk
• West Suffolk

Neighbouring councils

Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk

Guides for any emergency

• Power cut: call 105 free. Priority Services Register · Compensation calculator
• Power cuts
• First hour of a power cut
• Flooding
• Flood alerts and warnings
• Storms
• Cold weather
• Grab bag and evacuation
• Emergency Alerts
• A battery or wind-up radio keeps working in a power cut.
• All council pages in England · All UK council pages